CHAPTER L
THE MORREL FAMILY
N a very few minutes the count reached No.7 in the Rue Meslay. The house was of white stone, and in a small court before it were two small beds full of beautiful flowers. In the concierge that opened the gate the count recognized Cocles; but as he had but one eye, and that eye had considerably weakened in the course of nine years, Cocles did not so readily recognize the count.
The carriages that drove up to the door were compelled to turn, to avoid a fountain that played in a basin of rock-work, in which sported a quantity of gold and silver fishes, an ornament that had excited the jealousy of the whole quarter, and had gained for the house the appellation of "le Petit Versailles." The house, raised above the kitchens and cellars, had, besides the ground-floor, two stories and attics. The whole of the property, consisting of an immense atelier, two pavilions at the bottom of the garden, and the garden itself, had been purchased. by Emmanuel, who had seen at a glance that he could make a profitable speculation of it. He had reserved the house and half the garden, and building a wall between the garden and the workshops, had let them upon lease with the pavilions at the bottom of the garden, so that for a trifling sum he was as well lodged and as perfectly shut out from observation as the inhabitants of the finest hotel in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
The breakfast-room was of oak; the salon of mahogany and blue velvet; the bedroom of citronwood and green damask; there was a study for Emmanuel, who never studied, and a music-room for Julie, who never played. The whole of the second story was set apart for Maximilian; it was precisely the same as his sister's apartments, except that the breakfast-parlor was changed into a billiard-room, where he
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