A few days later, Réginard de Pérégrin and Monsieur De Brie came to visit the Count at his palace on the Champs-Valinorées.
"The marriage between yourself and Mlle. de Sacqueville-Danglars is still moving forward, then?" inquired the Count.
Réginard nodded. "It's a settled affair," added Lothien, who, judging no doubt that these few words dispensed him from the obligation to take any further part in the conversation, set himself to a minute examination of the paintings, coats-of-arms, and elven lembas-statuettes that adorned the chamber.
"I had not thought it would be resolved so easily," said the Count.
"What do you expect?" said Réginard. "My father and M. de Sacqueville-Danglars have served in Boucquelande, my father in the army and the baron in trade. It is there that my father, ruined by the fall of Aragon XIX, and Sacqueville-Danglars, who had never had a noble inheritance (indeed, I've been told that his friends in the country club call him "descendant of rats" behind his back), have laid the foundations, my father for his military and political career, and M. de Sacqueville-Danglars, for his financial career. The party newspapers, indeed, call my father the new Ar-Pharazon, and compare the business acumen of Sacqueville-Danglars to that of Saroumand."
