CHAPTER XIV.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
Van Klopen, the man-milliner, knew Paris and its people thoroughly like all tradesmen who are in the habit of giving large credit.

He knew all about the business of his customers, and never forgot an item of information when he received one.

Thus, when Mascarin spoke to him about the father of the lovely Flavia, whose charms had set the susceptible heart of Paul Violaine in a blaze, the arbiter of fashion had replied,-- "Martin Rigal; yes, I know him; he is a banker." And a banker, indeed, Martin Rigal was, dwelling in a magnificent house in the Rue Montmartre.
The bank was on the ground floor, while his private rooms were in the story above.

Though he did not do business in a very large way, yet he was a most respectable man, and his connection was chiefly with the smaller trades-people, who seem to live a strange kind of hand-to-mouth existence, and who might be happy were it not for the constant reappearance of that grim phantom--bills to be met.

Nearly all these persons were in the banker's hands entirely.