The second individual, who was enveloped in an old nut-colored box-coat, with which we are already familiar, wore a round hat, with so broad a brim and so low a crown, that at a short distance he seemed to be arrayed in the headgear of a coal man. He walked only a few steps from a house with a dark passageway, the gate of which was open, to the second or third house on each side of it; but his eyes never lost sight of the passage.
In these two individuals the reader will already have recognized Daréna and his worthy friend Monsieur Poterne.
Since his agent had been unable to do business with the young Marquis de Grandvilain, Daréna had fallen off lamentably from his former magnificence; as his profits had been squandered in a very short time, he had fallen back into what is called _noble indigence_; “completely cleaned out,” was Monsieur Poterne’s way of stating it.
Daréna still had recourse to his young friend’s purse from time to time; but he was afraid of ruining himself entirely in Chérubin’s estimation, if he abused that method; for, despite his ingenuous candor, the young man was possessed of some natural common sense which enabled him to divine what was not in accordance with propriety; and Daréna did not wish the doors of the hôtel de Grandvilain to be closed to him.
“By God! is that beast of a Poterne making a fool of me?” said Daréna, stopping at the street corner to shake the ashes off his cigar. “The idea of doing sentry-go on Rue Grenétat, where it’s always muddy! It’s like the country! I ought to be in the foyer of the Opéra now! But I forget that my costume is a little seedy! What a beastly cigar! Pah! there’s nothing decent in this region!”
Daréna threw away the end of his cigar, retraced his steps, and, halting beside Poterne, who was leaning against a post, with his eyes fixed on the dark passageway facing him, nudged him with his elbow and said:
“Are we going to say here long, old tom-cat? Do you know that I am beginning to be deucedly bored?”
“When you want to carry an undertaking through to a good end, you must be patient,” rejoined Poterne, without turning his head.
“To a good end! I fancy that your end won’t be very good, you old rascal. But why does the damsel keep us waiting? Doesn’t she know that you are here? Come, Poterne, answer your friend.”