As cold and as unmoved as a statue, Pascal seemed quite unconscious of the effect of the message he had brought--quite unconscious of Valorsay’s sufferings and self-constraint. “You think I am jesting, monsieur,” he said, quietly, “but I assure you that the baron is very short of money just now.” “Nonsense! a man worth seven or eight millions of francs.” “I should say ten millions, at least.” “Then the excuse is all the more absurd.” Pascal shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. “It astonishes me, Monsieur le Marquis, to hear YOU speak in this way. It is not the magnitude of a man’s income that constitutes affluence, but rather the way in which that income is spent. In this foolish age, almost all rich people are in arrears. What income does the baron derive from his ten millions of francs? Not more than five hundred thousand. A very handsome fortune, no doubt, and I should be more than content with it. But the baron gambles, and the baroness is the most elegant--in other words, the most extravagant--woman in Paris. They both of them love luxury, and their establishment is kept up in princely style. What are five hundred thousand francs under such circumstances as those? Their situation must be something like that of several millionaires of my acquaintance, who are obliged to take their silver to the pawn-broker’s while waiting for their rents to fall due.” This excuse might not be true, but it was certainly a very plausible one. Had not a recent lawsuit revealed the fact that certain rich folks, who had an income of more than a hundred thousand francs a year, had kept a thieving coachman for six months, simply because, in all that time, they were not able to raise the eight hundred francs they owed him, and which must be paid before he was dismissed? M. de Valorsay knew this, but a terrible disquietude seized him. Had people begun to suspect HIS embarrassment? Had any rumor of it reached Baron Trigault’s ears? This was what he wished to ascertain. “Let us understand each other, Monsieur Maumejan,” said he; “the baron was unable to procure this money he had promised me to-day--but when will he let me have it?” Pascal opened his eyes in pretended astonishment, and it was with an air of the utmost simplicity that he replied, “I concluded the baron would take no further action in the matter. I judged so from his parting words: ‘It consoles me a little,’ he said, ‘to think that the Marquis de Valorsay is very rich and very well known, and that he has a dozen friends who will be delighted to do him this trifling service.’”