Early the next day Randal Leslie was in the luxurious business-room of Baron Levy. How unlike the cold Doric simplicity of the statesman's library! Axminster carpets three inches thick, _portières à la Française_ before the doors; Parisian bronzes on the chimney-piece; and all the receptacles that lined the room, and contained title-deeds, and post-obits, and bills, and promises to pay, and lawyer-like japan boxes, with many a noble name written thereon in large white capitals--"making ruin pompous"--all these sepulchres of departed patrimonies veneered in rosewood that gleamed with French polish, and blazed with ormolu. There was a coquetry, an air of _petit maître_, so diffused over the whole room, that you could not for the life of you recollect you were with a usurer! Plutus wore the aspect of his enemy Cupid; and how realise your idea of Harpagon in that Baron, with his easy French "_Mon cher_," and his white warm hands that pressed yours so genially, and his dress so exquisite, even at the earliest morn? No man ever yet saw that Baron in a dressing-gown and slippers! As one fancies some feudal baron of old (not half so terrible) everlastingly clad in mail, so all one's notions of this grand marauder of civilisation were inseparably associated with varnished boots, and a camelia in the button-hole. "And this is all that he does for you!" cried the Baron, pressing together the points of his ten taper fingers. "Had he but let you conclude your career at Oxford, I have heard enough of your scholarship to know that you would have taken high honours--been secure of a fellowship--have betaken yourself with content to a slow and laborious profession--and prepared yourself to die on the woolsack." "He proposes to me now to return to Oxford," said Randal. "It is not too late!" "Yes it is," said the Baron. "Neither individuals nor nations ever go back of their own accord. There must be an earthquake before a river recedes to its source." "You speak well," answered Randal, "and I cannot gainsay you. But now!" "Ah, the _now_ is the grand question in life--the _then_ is obsolete, gone by--out of fashion; and _now_, _mon cher_, you come to ask my advice." "No, Baron; I come to ask your explanation." "Of what?" "I want to know why you spoke to me of Mr Egerton's ruin; why you spoke to me of the lands to be sold by Mr Thornhill; and why you spoke to me of Count Peschiera. You touched on each of these points within ten minutes--you omitted to indicate what link can connect them." "By Jove," said the Baron, rising, and with more admiration in his face than you could have conceived that face so smiling and so cynical could exhibit--"by Jove, Randal Leslie, but your shrewdness is wonderful. You really are the first young man of your day; and I will 'help you,' as I helped Audley Egerton. Perhaps you will be more grateful."