Bloch in a tone at once careless, proud and ashamed, ā€œit is a small club, but far more pleasant than a big one, the Ganaches. We’re very strict there, don’t you know.ā€ ā€œIsn’t Sir Rufus Israels the chairman?ā€ Bloch junior asked his father, so as to give him the opportunity for a glorious lie, never suspecting that the financier had not the same eminence in Saint-Loup’s eyes as in his. The fact of the matter was that the Ganaches club boasted not Sir Rufus Israels but one of his staff. But as this man was on the best of terms with his employer, he had at his disposal a stock of the financier’s cards, and would give one to M.

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