"For a long time I've been possessed with the notion of building. I have it in contemplation to add a gallery on the garden to the right wing of the hotel. After a long hesitation, I have quite decided. You must tell my architect to-day so that he can come and talk over the plans. Well, M. Doublet, you don't groan over this expense?" "I can assure your lordship that I do not groan." "This gallery will be destined for _fetes_; I wish it to be built, as it were, by enchantment; now, enchantments being very dear, you must sell fifteen or twenty thousand livres of stock, to be ready to furnish the funds, for I wish the work commenced as soon as possible." Joseph entered. "Here is the address of the jeweler, my lord; his name is Baudoin." "My dear M. Doublet, you will go, I beg you, to this jeweler, and tell him to bring here, in an hour, a diamond necklace worth about two thousand louis. Women can never have too many jewels, now that dresses are trimmed with them. You will arrange with the jeweler for the payment." "Yes, my lord. It is on account of the surprise that I do not groan this time. Diamonds are like buildings, the value remains; and, besides, this surprise to the marchioness! It is as I had the honor to say the other day--there is not in the world a happier man than your lordship." "Good M. Doublet!" said D'Harville, smiling; "his felicitations are always so inconceivably _apropos_" "It is their sole merit, my lord; and they have, perhaps, this merit because they come from the bottom of the heart. I go to the jeweler," said Doublet, retiring. As soon as he was gone, D'Harville paced the floor, his arms folded, his eyes fixed and meditative. Suddenly his countenance changed; it no longer expressed the content of which the attendant and the old servant had just been the dupe, but a calm, cold, and mournful resolution. After having walked some time, he seated himself, as if overcome by the weight of his troubles, with his face buried in his hands. Then he suddenly arose, wiped away a tear which moistened his burning eyelid, and said, with an effort, "Come, courage." He wrote letters to several persons about insignificant objects, but in the letters he appointed or put off different meetings several days. This correspondence finished, Joseph came in; he was so gay that he so far forgot himself as to sing in his turn. "Joseph, you have a very fine voice," said his master smiling. "So much the worse, my lord, for I never knew it; something sings so loudly within that it must be heard without." "You will put these letters in the post-office." "Yes, my lord; but where will you receive these gentlemen?" "Here in my cabinet; they will smoke after breakfast, and the odor of the tobacco will not reach her lady-ship." At this moment the noise of a carriage was heard in the courtyard. "It is her ladyship going out; she ordered the horses this morning at an early hour," said Joseph.