"
"Excuse me, but your way of speaking of your present situation
rather surprises me. Your father, I believe, was a merchant, just
as Danville's father was a merchant; the only difference between
them was that one failed and the other realized a large fortune.
Why should you speak of yourself as honored by holding your
present place?"
"Have you never heard?" exclaimed Lomaque, with an appearance of
great astonishment, "or can you have heard, and forgotten, that
Madame Danville is descended from one of the noble houses of
France? Has she never told you, as she has often told me, that
she condescended when she married her late husband; and that her
great object in life is to get the title of her family (years
since extinct in the male line) settled on her son?"
"Yes," replied Trudaine; "I remember to have heard something of
this, and to have paid no great attention to it at the time,
having little sympathy with such aspirations as you describe. You
have lived many years in Danville's service, Monsieur Lomaque;
have you"--he hesitated for a moment, then continued, looking the
land-steward full in the face--"have you found him a good and
kind master?"
Lomaque's thin lips seemed to close instinctively at the
question, as if he were never going to speak again. He
bowed--Trudaine waited--he only bowed again. Trudaine waited a
third time.
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