The marquis found him convenient by reason of his persistent industry, his silence and his intelligence, and gradually took him into his confidence with regard to all his affairs, which were in any way difficult to unravel. The marquis was a sagacious business man on all those occasions when his lofty ambition gave him some respite; having special information within his reach, he would speculate successfully on the Exchange. He would buy mansions and forests; but he would easily lose his temper. He would give away hundreds of louis, and would go to law for a few hundred francs. Rich men with a lofty spirit have recourse to business not so much for results as for distraction. The marquis needed a chief of staff who would put all his money affairs into clear and lucid order. Madame de la Mole, although of so even a character, sometimes made fun of Julien. Great ladies have a horror of those unexpected incidents which are produced by a sensitive character; they constitute the opposite pole of etiquette. On two or three occasions the marquis took his part. "If he is ridiculous in your salon, he triumphs in his office." Julien on his side thought he had caught the marquise's secret. She deigned to manifest an interest in everything the minute the Baron de la Joumate was announced. He was a cold individual with an expressionless physiognomy. He was tall, thin, ugly, very well dressed, passed his life in his château, and generally speaking said nothing about anything. Such was his outlook on life. Madame de la Mole would have been happy for the first time in her life if she could have made him her daughter's husband. CHAPTER XXXVI PRONUNCIATION If fatuity is pardonable it is in one's first youth, for it is then the exaggeration of an amiable thing. It needs an air of love, gaiety, nonchalance. But fatuity coupled with self-importance; fatuity with a solemn and self-sufficient manner! This extravagance of stupidity was reserved for the XIXth century. Such are the persons who want to unchain the _hydra of revolutions_!--LE JOHANNISBURG, _Pamphlet_. Considering that he was a new arrival who was too disdainful to put any questions, Julien did not fall into unduly great mistakes. One day when he was forced into a café in the Rue St. Honoré by a sudden shower, a big man in a beaver coat, surprised by his gloomy look, looked at him in return just as mademoiselle Amanda's lover had done before at Besançon.