Chapter 25

A PRINCE OF BOHEMIA

The next day, when Maxime de Trailles rose, Finot (whom he had
summoned the night before) was announced. Maxime requested his visitor
to arrange, as if by accident, a breakfast at the cafe Anglais, where
Finot, Couture, and Lousteau should gossip beside him. Finot, whose
position toward the Comte de Trailles was that of a sub-lieutenant
before a marshall of France, could refuse him nothing; it was
altogether too dangerous to annoy that lion. Consequently, when Maxime
came to the breakfast, he found Finot and his two friends at table and
the conversation already started on Madame Schontz, about whom
Couture, well manoeuvred by Finot and Lousteau (Lousteau being, though
not aware of it, Finot's tool), revealed to the Comte de Trailles all
that he wanted to know about her.

About one o'clock, Maxime was chewing a toothpick and talking with du
Tillet on Tortoni's portico, where speculation held a little Bourse, a
sort of prelude to the great one. He seemed to be engaged in business,
but he was really awaiting the Comte de la Palferine, who, within a
given time, was certain to pass that way. The boulevard des Italiens
is to-day what the Pont Neuf was in 1650; all persons known to fame
pass along it once, at least, in the course of the day. Accordingly,
at the end of about ten minutes, Maxime dropped du Tillet's arm, and
nodding to the young Prince of Bohemia said, smiling:--

"One word with you, count."

The two rivals in their own principality, the one orb on its decline,
the other like the rising sun, sat down upon four chairs before the
Cafe de Paris. Maxime took care to place a certain distance between
himself and some old fellows who habitually sunned themselves like
wall-fruit at that hour in the afternoon, to dry out their rheumatic
affections. He had excellent reasons for distrusting old men.

"Have you debts?" said Maxime, to the young count.

"If I had none, should I be worthy of being your successor?" replied
La Palferine.

"In putting that question to you I don't place the matter in doubt; I
only want to know if the total is reasonable; if it goes to the five
or the six?"

"Six what?"

"Figures; whether you owe fifty or one hundred thousand? I have owed,
myself, as much as six hundred thousand."

La Palferine raised his hat with an air as respectful as it was
humorous.

"If I had sufficient credit to borrow a hundred thousand francs," he
replied, "I should forget my creditors and go and pass my life in
Venice, amid masterpieces of painting and pretty women and--"

"And at my age what would you be?" asked Maxime.