"Monseigneur," replied Pascal, with ironical gravity, "it is not my habit to be weak twice in succession during one interview. It is now the hour for my appointment in the Faubourg St. Marceau; I have the honour of presenting my respectful compliments to your Royal Highness."
M. Pascal, leaving the prince full of vexation and concern, walked to the door, then turned, and said:
"To-day is Monday; on Thursday, at eleven o'clock, I shall have the honour of seeing your Royal Highness again, and will then submit my little condition."
M. Pascal bowed profoundly, and went out.
When he passed through the parlour where the officials were assembled all rose respectfully, recognising the importance of the person whom the prince had just received. M. Pascal returned their courtesy with a patronising inclination of the head, and left the palace as he had entered it, both hands in his pockets, not denying himself the pleasure--for this man lost nothing--of stopping a minute before the lodge of the porter and saying to him:
"Well, scoundrel, will you recognise me another time?"
"Oh, I shall recognise monsieur hereafter! I beg monsieur to pardon my mistake."
"He begs me," said Pascal, half aloud, with a bitter smile. "They know how to beg from the Royal Highness to the porter."
M. Pascal, as he went out of the Élysée, fell again into painful reflections upon the subject of the young girl whose secret meeting with Count Frantz de Neuberg he had surprised. Wishing to know if she lived in the house contiguous to the palace, he was going to make inquiries, when, remembering that such a course might perhaps compromise his plans, he prudently resolved to wait until evening.
Seeing a hackney coach, he called the driver, entered the carriage, and said to him:
"Faubourg St. Marceau, fifteen; the large factory whose chimney you see from the street."
"The factory belonging to M. Dutertre? I know, citizen, I know; everybody knows that."
M. Pascal, as we have said, had spent a part of his life in a subordinate and precarious position, enduring the most ignominious treatment with a patience full of bitterness and hatred.
Born of a peddler who had amassed a competency by dint of privation and illicit or questionable traffic, he had commenced his business career as a day-labourer in the house of a provincial usurer, to whom Pascal's father had entrusted the care of his money.