these two or three millions in your hands, whose talent might make it realize ten percent.”
“I never give more than four percent, and generally only three and a half; but to my son-in-law I would give five, and we would share the profits.”
“Very good, father-in-law,” said Cavalcanti, yielding to his lowborn nature, which would escape sometimes through the aristocratic gloss with which he sought to conceal it. Correcting himself immediately, he said, “Excuse me, sir; hope alone makes me almost mad—what will not reality do?”
“But,” said Danglars, who, on his part, did not perceive how soon the conversation, which was at first disinterested, was turning to a business transaction, “there is, doubtless, a part of your fortune your father could not refuse you?”
“Which?” asked the young man.
“That you inherit from your mother.”
“Truly, from my mother, Leonora Corsinari.”
“How much may it amount to?”
“Indeed, sir,” said Andrea, “I assure you I have never given the subject a thought, but I suppose it must have been at least two millions.”
Danglars felt as much overcome with joy as the miser who finds a lost treasure, or as the shipwrecked mariner who feels himself on solid ground instead of in the abyss which he