Then going up to Monsieur Phellion, senior, she said to him: 

  “Monsieur and old friend!  I ask you for the hand of Monsieur Felix
  Phellion for our adopted daughter, Mademoiselle Colleville.”

  “Bravo! bravo!” they call cried in chorus.

  “My God!” said Monsieur Phellion, with tears in his eyes; “what
  have I done to deserve such happiness?”

  “You have been an honest man and a Christian without knowing it,”
  replied the Abbe Gondrin.

Here la Peyrade flung down the manuscript.

“You did not finish it,” said Corentin, taking back the paper.  “However, there’s not much more.  Monsieur Henri confesses to me that the scene had moved him; he also says that, knowing the interest I had formerly taken in the marriage, he thought he ought to inform me of its conclusion; ending with a slightly veiled suggestion of a fee.  No, stay,” resumed Corentin, “here is a detail of some importance:—­”

The English woman seems to have made it known during dinner that, having no heirs, her fortune, after the lives of herself and her husband, will go to Felix.  That will make him powerfully rich one of these days.

La Peyrade had risen and was striding about the room with rapid steps.

“Well,” said Corentin, “what is the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

“That is not true,” said the great detective.  “I think you envy the happiness of that young man.  My dear fellow, permit me to tell you that if such a conclusion were to your taste, you should have acted as he has done.  When I sent you two thousand francs on which to study law, I did not intend you to succeed me; I expected you to row your galley laboriously, to have the needful courage for obscure and painful toil; your day would infallibly have come.  But you chose to violate fortune—­”

“Monsieur!”

“I mean hasten it, reap it before it ripened.  You flung yourself into journalism; then into business, questionable business; you made acquaintance with Messieurs Dutocq and Cerizet.  Frankly, I think you fortunate to have entered the port which harbors you to-day.  In any case, you are not sufficiently simple of heart to have really valued the joys reserved for Felix Phellion.  These bourgeois—­”

“These bourgeois,” said la Peyrade, quickly,—­“I know them now.  They have great absurdities, great vices even, but they have virtues, or, at the least, estimable qualities; in them lies the vital force of our corrupt society.”

“Your society!” said Corentin, smiling; “you speak as if you were still in the ranks.  You have another sphere, my dear fellow; and you must learn to be more content with your lot.  Governments pass, societies perish or dwindle; but we—­we dominate all things; the police is eternal.”

TRANSLATOR’S NOTE