第84章

Rigou was in his way another Tonsard.The one throve on thefts from nature, the other waxed fat on legal plunder.Both liked to live well.

It was the same nature in two species,--the one natural, the other whetted by his training in a cloister.

It was about four o'clock when Vaudoyer left the tavern of the Grand-

I-Vert to consult the former mayor.Rigou was at dinner.Finding the front door locked, Vaudoyer looked above the window blinds and called out:--

"Monsieur Rigou, it is I,--Vaudoyer."

Jean came round from the porte-cochere and said to Vaudoyer:--

"Come into the garden; Monsieur has company."

The company was Sibilet, who, under pretext of discussing the verdict Brunet had just handed in, was talking to Rigou of quite other matters.He had found the usurer finishing his dessert.On a square dinner-table covered with a dazzling white cloth--for, regardless of his wife and Annette who did the washing, Rigou exacted clean table-

linen every day--the steward noted strawberries, apricots, peaches, figs, and almonds, all the fruits of the season in profusion, served in white porcelain dishes on vine-leaves as daintily as at Les Aigues.

Seeing Sibilet, Rigou told him to run the bolts of the inside double-

doors, which were added to the other doors as much to stifle sounds as to keep out the cold air, and asked him what pressing business brought him there in broad daylight when it was so much safer to confer together at night.

"The Shopman talks of going to Paris to see the Keeper of the Seals;

he is capable of doing you a great deal of harm; he may ask for the dismissal of your son-in-law, and the removal of the judges at Ville-

aux-Fayes, especially after reading the verdict just rendered in your favor.He has turned at bay; he is shrewd, and he has an adviser in that abbe, who is quite able to tilt with you and Gaubertin.Priests are powerful.Monseigneur the bishop thinks a great deal of the Abbe Brossette.Madame la comtesse talks of going herself to her cousin the prefect, the Comte de Casteran, about Nicolas.Michaud begins to see into our game."

"You are frightened," said Rigou, softly, casting a look on Sibilet which suspicion made less impassive than usual, and which was therefore terrific."You are debating whether it would not be better on the whole to side with the Comte de Montcornet."

"I don't see where I am to get the four thousand francs I save honestly and invest every year, after you have cut up and sold Les Aigues," said Sibilet, shortly."Monsieur Gaubertin has made me many fine promises; but the crisis is coming on; there will be fighting, surely.Promising before victory and keeping a promise after it are two very different things."

"I will talk to him about it," replied Rigou, imperturbably."Meantime this is what I should say to you if I were in his place: 'For the last five years you have taken Monsieur Rigou four thousand francs a year, and that worthy man gives you seven and a half per cent; which makes your property in his hands at this moment over twenty-seven thousand francs, as you have not drawn the interest.But there exists a private signed agreement between you and Rigou, and the Shopman will dismiss his steward whenever the Abbe Brossette lays that document before his eyes; the abbe will be able to do so after receiving an anonymous letter which will inform him of your double-dealing.You would therefore do better for yourself by keeping well with us instead of clamoring for your pay in advance,--all the more because Monsieur Rigou, who is not legally bound to give you seven and a half per cent and the interest on your interest, will make you in court a legal tender of your twenty thousand francs, and you will not be able to touch that money until your suit, prolonged by legal trickery, shall be decided by the court at Ville-aux-Fayes.But if you act wisely you will find that when Monsieur Rigou gets possession of your pavilion at Les Aigues, you will have very nearly thirty thousand francs in his hands and thirty thousand more which the said Rigou may entrust to you,--which will be all the more advantageous to you then because the peasantry will have flung them themselves upon the estate of Les Aigues, divided into small lots like the poverty of the world.' That's what Monsieur Gaubertin might say to you.As for me, I have nothing to say, for it is none of my business.Gaubertin and I have our own quarrel with that son of the people who is ashamed of his own father, and we follow our own course.If my friend Gaubertin feels the need of using you, I don't; I need no one, for everybody is at my command.As to the Keeper of the Seals, that functionary is often changed; whereas we--WE are always here, and can bide our time."

"Well, I've warned you," returned Sibilet, feeling like a donkey under a pack-saddle.

"Warned me of what?" said Rigou, artfully.

"Of what the Shopman is going to do," answered the steward, humbly.

"He started for the Prefecture in a rage."

"Let him go! If the Montcornets and their kind didn't use wheels, what would become of the carriage-makers?"