Little Croizeau was attached to the Empire through his connection with Napoleon's sisters. He had been their coach-builder, and had frequently dunned them for money; so he gave out that he 'had had relations with the Imperial family.' Maxime, duly informed by Antonia of the 'nice old man's' proposals (for so the aunt called Croizeau), wished to see him. Cerizet's declaration of war had so far taken effect that he of the yellow kid gloves was studying the position of every piece, however insignificant, upon the board; and it so happened that at the mention of that 'nice old man,' an ominous tinkling sounded in his ears. One evening, therefore, Maxime seated himself among the book-shelves in the dimly lighted back room, reconnoitred the seven or eight customers through the chink between the green curtains, and took the little coach-builder's measure. He gauged the man's infatuation, and was very well satisfied to find that the varnished doors of a tolerably sumptuous future were ready to turn at a word from Antonia so soon as his own fancy had passed off.
" 'And that other one yonder?' asked he, pointing out the stout fine- looking elderly man with the Cross of the Legion of Honor. 'Who is he?'
" 'A retired custom-house officer.'
" 'The cut of his countenance is not reassuring,' said Maxime, beholding the Sieur Denisart.
"And indeed the old soldier held himself upright as a steeple. His head was remarkable for the amount of powder and pomatum bestowed upon it; he looked almost like a postilion at a fancy ball. Underneath that felted covering, moulded to the top of the wearer's cranium, appeared an elderly profile, half-official, half-soldierly, with a comical admixture of arrogance,--altogether something like caricatures of the Constitutionnel. The sometime official finding that age, and hair- powder, and the conformation of his spine made it impossible to read a word without spectacles, sat displaying a very creditable expanse of chest with all the pride of an old man with a mistress. Like old General Montcornet, that pillar of the Vaudeville, he wore earrings. Denisart was partial to blue; his roomy trousers and well-worn greatcoat were both of blue cloth.
" 'How long is it since that old fogy came here?' inquired Maxime, thinking that he saw danger in the spectacles.
" 'Oh, from the beginning,' returned Antonia, 'pretty nearly two months ago now.'
" 'Good," said Maxime to himself, 'Cerizet only came to me a month ago.--Just get him to talk,' he added in Antonia's ear; 'I want to hear his voice.'
" 'Pshaw,' said she, 'that is not so easy. He never says a word to me.'
" 'Then why does he come here?' demanded Maxime.
" 'For a queer reason,' returned the fair Antonia. 'In the first place, although he is sixty-nine, he has a fancy; and because he is sixty-nine, he is as methodical as a clock face. Every day at five o'clock the old gentleman goes to dine with her in the Rue de la Victoire. (I am sorry for her.) Then at six o'clock, he comes here, reads steadily at the papers for four hours, and goes back at ten o'clock. Daddy Croizeau says that he knows M. Denisart's motives, and approves his conduct; and in his place, he would do the same. So I know exactly what to expect. If ever I am Mme. Croizeau, I shall have four hours to myself between six and ten o'clock.'
"Maxime looked through the directory, and found the following reassuring item:
"DENISART,* retired custom-house officer, Rue de la Victoire.
"His uneasiness vanished.
"Gradually the Sieur Denisart and the Sieur Croizeau began to exchange confidences. Nothing so binds two men together as a similarity of views in the matter of womankind. Daddy Croizeau went to dine with 'M. Denisart's fair lady,' as he called her. And here I must make a somewhat important observation.
"The reading-room had been paid for half in cash, half in bills signed by the said Mlle. Chocardelle. The quart d'heure de Rabelais arrived; the Count had no money. So the first bill of three thousand francs was met by the amiable coach-builder; that old scoundrel Denisart having recommended him to secure himself with a mortgage on the reading-room.
" 'For my own part,' said Denisart, 'I have seen pretty doings from pretty women. So in all cases, even when I have lost my head, I am always on my guard with a woman. There is this creature, for instance; I am madly in love with her; but this is not her furniture; no, it belongs to me. The lease is taken out in my name.'
"You know Maxime! He thought the coach-builder uncommonly green. Croizeau might pay all three bills, and get nothing for a long while; for Maxime felt more infatuated with Antonia than ever."
"I can well believe it," said La Palferine. "She is the bella Imperia of our day."
"With her rough skin!" exclaimed Malaga; "so rough, that she ruins herself in bran baths!"
"Croizeau spoke with a coach-builder's admiration of the sumptuous furniture provided by the amorous Denisart as a setting for his fair one, describing it all in detail with diabolical complacency for Antonia's benefit," continued Desroches.