Dalibard apparently became his nearest relative.
To avarice or to worldly ambition there was undoubtedly something very dazzling in the prospect thus opened to the eyes of Olivier Dalibard.
The contractor's splendid mode of living, vying with that of the fermier-general of old, the colossal masses of capital by which he backed and supported speculations that varied with an ingenuity rendered practical and profound by experience, inflamed into fever the morbid restlessness of fancy and intellect which characterized the evil scholar; for that restlessness seemed to supply to his nature vices not constitutional to it.

Dalibard had not the avarice that belongs either to a miser or a spendthrift.

In his youth, his books and the simple desires of an abstract student sufficed to his wants, and a habit of method and order, a mechanical calculation which accompanied all his acts, from the least to the greatest, preserved him, even when most poor, from neediness and want.

Nor was he by nature vain and ostentatious,--those infirmities accompany a larger and more luxurious nature.

His philosophy rather despised, than inclined to, show.