His Excellency the Count of Grandet

The arrival of the two men caused a sensation among the guests.It feels like a stone is thrown into a calm lake, and the circular ripples are scattered around; the center of the circle is Victor and Ferdinand, and the ripples are many tacit eyes and whispers among acquaintances .

No matter who it was, the first reaction when they heard it was shock—the Grandet family had invited such two influential figures; the next step was to try to find an opportunity to show their face; In the end, it turned into admiration for the Grandet family's wrist——

How did Guillaume make the banker and His Excellency the Duke nod at the same time?Does it mean that the Grandet family has already ascended the throne silently without them noticing?

"It's just..." A gentleman with a beautiful beard whispered, his eyes followed Charles and the others in the field, "It seems that they have a very happy atmosphere."

There is something in this statement, because Victor is famous for his high-sightedness, while Ferdinand is notorious for being cold and quiet.After Guillaume and Charles made the necessary speeches and thanks in turn, they first focused on entertaining Victor and Ferdinand.Such a combination of four people talked and laughed at Yan Yan for more than ten minutes, and those who wanted to intervene couldn't find the time, which was beyond everyone's expectations.

His partner, a businessman in custom-made carriages, said this: "The young master of the Grandet family ordered a light traveling carriage from me. It seems that I should let the people below be more dedicated..." Before today, he still called Charles Charles; after today, he was "Master Grandet".

The third gentleman felt the same way. "This is a good opportunity!" He emphasized, with envy in his tone, "Today's things are clear enough!"

Now a small circle of people are nodding.Everyone present was a fine person, and Victor and Ferdinand's willingness to come to this coming-of-age ceremony already explained everything, not to mention their current behavior.Therefore, all of them reached a consensus in their hearts——

The Grandet family is about to prosper!Hold your thighs and hurry up!

Among so many guests, there is probably only one person who thinks differently from others, and that is Annette.After meeting at the last ball, Charles wrote her a letter, which did not mention any details that Victor or Ferdinand would also come to the birthday party.Judging from today's situation, this matter has obviously been settled long ago.

How can this be?What about that Charles who used to tell her every detail?where it goes?

Although Annette still had her trademark sweet smile on her face, secretly, she was holding her palm through the handkerchief.She still remembers Charles a few months ago, well-behaved and obedient, with a straightforward temperament of a young man, who would not say corners, and asked her to remind her; but now, she is able to communicate freely with such big men as the bank magnate and His Excellency the Duke. Do you have a deal?

This seemed to come down to character growth, but that growth was not what Annette liked.To be precise, she has a strong sense of crisis about Shire's changes in a time she doesn't know; she feels threatened that the secret relationship between her and Shire is no longer dominated by her.

If it was another person with a less scheming mind, she might have rushed forward to question Charles at this time; but Annette was not, she made a decision after pinching her palms, and went back to write the letter that Charles had written to her. Put away the letters and the small gifts I bought for her more carefully, maybe they will be of great use in the future.

Now Shire is dealing with two troublesome characters, and of course Annette cannot be considered.Ask why bother?Most of the reason is due to the fact that the banker and the little duke don't see eye to eye.

Charles couldn't think of a reason why they didn't see eye to eye.As far as he knew, Victor and Louis - the Duke of Orleans, Ferdinand's father - had a good personal relationship, at least certainly not like now, with insinuations hidden in their smiles.

Take a simple conversation as an example.

Victor with a smile on his face: "It's amazing, I thought École Polytechnique never had weekends off."

Ferdinand, always with a straight face: "Most people are like this, I'm just lucky." Then he asked again: "Aren't you busy recently?"

In fact, as the largest investor in France, Victor has been very busy.But his smile didn't change a bit: "There are always priorities, and of course I can tell the difference." The implication was that he was comparing himself on the issue of "who values ​​Shire more".

Charles said he couldn't speak.Although he knew that schools under militarized management generally did not have holidays, but Ferdinand was already a duke, so there must be some privileges, right?As for priorities and such...

Charles twitched his eyebrows inwardly.What the hell is going on with this banker!It's weird every time we meet, isn't it true!

So, all the jokes and jokes are illusions!However, Charles was neither in the mood nor able to be that middleman, he just acted that he didn't hear this kind of secret confrontation at all - anyway, what he wanted was only the superficial effect, why didn't these two people deal with each other in private and let them solve it themselves!

This went on for a while, and then Ferdinand got impatient at first.He tilted his head to signal to Charles, and the latter knew it immediately: "I still have something to do, please allow me to take my leave for a while."

Guillaume understood at a glance that his son was going to sign a formal contract with Ferdinand.The father and son had considered this matter more than once before, and he believed that Charles was competent, so of course he had no objection.

Victor didn't object either, but the smile on his face deepened.

He now roughly understands the intention of the Duke of Orleans to let his son Ferdinand handle this matter, and Ferdinand must have known it, so he has some resistance to his presence here (implying that he is trying to make friends with Charles)-what the Duke wants is A person who does things, of course, it is best for this person to only listen to one person.But if Charles really falls under the duke's family, for him, the attractiveness will be reduced a lot—to be precise, it will become very inconvenient (it will be inconvenient for any person, event, or politics to get too deeply involved), and he Hate trouble.

That would be no fun...

10 minute later.

In the meeting room specially prepared by Guillaume, Charles got his own part of the agreement in triplicate.Both parties should have one copy, and the other should be placed with the notary.This is no problem, but when he browsed the content of the agreement, he noticed the biggest key at a glance——

For five years, each year... [-] barrels?

Charles was shocked.This is impossible!He had inquired about the previous share, the highest was only 1 barrels a year; now the number has soared by 20.00% in an instant [-], why?