e far more sanguine of success if you addressed M. Louvier in person."

"I should nevertheless prefer leaving it in your hands; but even for
that I must take a few days to consider. Of all the mortgagees M.
Louvier has been hitherto the severest and most menacing, the one whom
Hebert dreads the most; and should he become sole mortgagee, my whole
estate would pass to him if, through any succession of bad seasons and
failing tenants, the interest was not punctually paid."

"It could so pass to him now."

"No; for there have been years in which the other mortgagees, who are
Bretons and would be loath to ruin a Rochebriant, have been lenient and
patient."

"If Louvier has not been equally so, it is only because he knew nothing
of you, and your father no doubt had often sorely tasked his endurance.
Come, suppose we manage to break the ice easily. Do me the honour to
dine here to meet him; you will find that he is not an unpleasant man."

The Marquis hesitated, but the thought of the sharp and seemingly
hopeless struggle for the retention of his ancestral home to which he
would be doomed if he returned from Paris unsuccessful in his errand
overmastered his pride. He felt as if that self-conquest was a duty he
owed to the very tombs of his fathers. "I ought not to shrink from the
face of a creditor," said he, smiling somewhat sadly, "and I accept the
proposal you so graciously make."

"You do well, Marquis, and I will write at once to Louvier to ask him to
give me his first disengaged day."

The Marquis had no sooner quitted the house than M. Gandrin opened a
door at the side of his office, and a large portly man strode into the
room,--stride it was rather than step,--firm, self-assured, arrogant,
masterful.

"Well, mon ami," said this man, taking his stand at the hearth, as a
king might take his stand in the hall of his vassal, "and what says our
petit muscadin?"

"He is neither petit nor muscadin, Monsieur Louvier," replied Gandrin,
peevishly; "and he will task your powers to get him thoroughly into your
net. But I have persuaded him to meet you here. What day can you dine
with me? I had better ask no one else."

"To-morrow I dine with my friend O-----, to meet the chiefs of the
Opposition," said M. Louvier, with a sort of careless rollicking
pomposity. "Thursday with Pereire; Saturday I entertain at home. Say
Friday. Your hour?"

"Seven."

"Good! Show me those Rochebriant papers again; there is something I ha