Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/105

Rh the porter, takes one long and meditative survey of the magnificent mansion opposite him, and then replies, with aristocratic indifference—

"Perhaps. These Cevennes are immensely rich?"

"Immensely! To the amount of millions." The porter is prone to extravagant gesticulation, but he cannot lift either his eyebrows or his shoulders high enough to express the extent of the wealth of the De Cevennes.

The lounger takes out his pocket-book, writes a few lines, and tearing the leaf out, gives it to the porter, saying—

"You will favour me, my good friend, by giving this to Mademoiselle Finette at your earliest convenience. You were not always a married man; and can therefore understand that it will be as well to deliver my little note secretly."

Nothing can exceed the intense significance of the porter's wink as he takes charge of the note. The lounger nods an indifferent good-day, and strolls away.

"A marquis at the least," says the porter. "O, Mademoiselle Finette, you do not wear black satin gowns and a gold watch and chain for nothing."

The lounger is ubiquitous, this winter's day. At three o'clock in the afternoon he is seated on a bench in the gardens of the Luxembourg, smoking a cigar. He is dressed as before, in the last Parisian fashion; but his greatcoat is a little open at the throat, displaying a loosely-tied cravat of a peculiarly bright blue.

A young person of the genus lady's-maid, tripping daintily by, is apparently attracted by this blue cravat, for she hovers about the bench for a few moments and then seats herself at the extreme end of it, as far as possible from the indifferent lounger, who has not once noticed her by so much as one glance of his cold blue eyes.

His cigar is nearly finished, so he waits till it is quite done; then, throwing away the stump, he says, scarcely looking at his neighbour—

"Mademoiselle Finette, I presume?"

"The same, monsieur."

"Then perhaps, mademoiselle, as you have condescended to favour me with an interview, and as the business on which I have to address you is of a strictly private nature, you will also condescend to come a little nearer to me?"

He says this without appearing to look at her, while he lights another cigar. He is evidently a desperate smoker, and caresses his cigar, looking at the red light and blue smoke almost as if it were his familiar spirit, by whose aid he could work out wonderful calculations in the black art, and without which he would perhaps be powerless. Mademoiselle Finette