Eve and David

“How did you do it?”

“What was he wanting to do but to take a look at the master’s pots and pans and stuff, to find out the secret, forsooth. I knew quite well that there was nothing in the little place, but I frightened him and talked as if he were setting about robbing his son, and he gave me twelve francs to say nothing about it.”

Just at that moment Basine came in radiant, and with a letter for her friend, a letter from David written on magnificent paper, which she handed over when they were alone.

“MY ADORED EVE, – I am writing to you the first letter on my first sheet of paper made by the new process. I have solved the problem of sizing the pulp in the trough at last. A pound of pulp costs five sous, even supposing that the raw material is grown on good soil with special culture; three francs’ worth of sized pulp will make a ream of paper, at twelve pounds to the ream. I am quite sure that I can lessen the weight of books by one-half. The envelope, the letter, and samples enclosed are all manufactured in different ways. I kiss you; you shall have wealth now to add to our happiness, everything else we had before.”

“There!” said Eve, handing the samples to her father-in-law, “when the vintage is over let your son have the money, give him a chance to make his fortune, and you shall be repaid ten times over; he has succeeded at last!”

Old Sechard hurried at once to the Cointets. Every sample was tested and minutely examined; the prices, from three to ten francs per ream, were noted on each separate slip; some were sized, others unsized; some were of almost metallic purity, others soft as Japanese paper; in color there was every possible shade of white. If old Sechard and the two Cointets had been Jews examining diamonds, their eyes could not have glistened more eagerly.

“Your son is on the right track,” the fat Cointet said at length.

“Very well, pay his debts,” returned old Sechard.

“By all means, if he will take us into partnership,” said the tall Cointet.

“You are extortioners!” cried old Sechard. “You have been suing him under Metivier’s name, and you mean me to buy you off; that is the long and the short of it. Not such a fool, gentlemen – ”

The brothers looked at one another, but they contrived to hide their surprise at the old miser’s shrewdness.

“We are not millionaires,” said fat Cointet; “we do not discount bills for amusement. We should think ourselves well off if we could pay ready money for our bits of accounts for rags, and we still give bills to our dealer.”

“The experiment ought to be tried first on a much larger scale,” the tall Cointet said coldly; “sometimes you try a thing with a saucepan and succeed, and fail utterly when you experiment with bulk. You should help your son out of difficulties.”

“Yes; but when my son is at liberty, would he take me as his partner?”

“That is no business of ours,” said the fat Cointet. “My good man, do you suppose that when you have paid some ten thousand francs for your son, that there is an end of it? It will cost two thousand francs to take out a patent; there will be journeys to Paris; and before going to any expense, it would be prudent to do as my brother suggests, and make a thousand reams or so; to try several whole batches to make sure. You see, there is nothing you must be so much on your guard against as an inventor.”

“I have a liking for bread ready buttered myself,” added the tall Cointet.

All through that night the old man ruminated over this dilemma – “If I pay David’s debts, he will be set at liberty, and once set at liberty, he need not share his fortune with me unless he chooses. He knows very well that I cheated him over the first partnership, and he will not care to try a second; so it is to my interest to keep him shut up, the wretched boy.”

The Cointets knew enough of Sechard senior to see that they should hunt in couples. All three said to themselves – “Experiments must be tried before the discovery can take any practical shape. David Sechard must be set at liberty before those experiments can be made; and David Sechard, set at liberty, will slip through our fingers.”

Everybody involved, moreover, had his own little afterthought.

Petit-Claud, for instance, said, “As soon as I am married, I will slip my neck out of the Cointets’ yoke; but till then I shall hold on.”

The tall Cointet thought, “I would rather have David under lock and key, and then I should be master of the situation.”

Old Sechard, too, thought, “If I pay my son’s debts, he will repay me with a ‘Thank you!’”

Eve, hard pressed (for the old man threatened now to turn her out of the house), would neither reveal her husband’s hiding-place, nor even send proposals of a safe-conduct. She could not feel sure of finding so safe a refuge a second time.

“Set your son at liberty,” she told her father-in-law, “and then you shall know everything.”

The four interested persons sat, as it were, with a banquet spread before them, none of them daring to begin, each one suspicious and watchful of his neighbor. A few days after David went into hiding, Petit-Claud went to the mill to see the tall Cointet.

“I have done my best,” he said; “David has gone into prison of his own accord somewhere or other; he is working out some improvement there in peace. It is no fault of mine if you have not gained your end; are you going to keep your promise?”

“Yes, if we succeed,” said the tall Cointet. “Old Sechard was here only a day or two ago; he came to ask us some questions as to paper-making. The old miser has got wind of his son’s invention; he wants to turn it to his own account, so there is some hope of a partnership. You are with the father and the son – ”

“Be the third person in the trinity and give them up,” smiled Petit-Claud.

“Yes,” said Cointet. “When you have David in prison, or bound to us by a deed of partnership, you shall marry Mlle. de la Haye.”

“Is that your ultimatum?”

“My sine qua non,” said Cointet, “since we are speaking in foreign languages.”

“Then here is mine in plain language,” Petit-Claud said drily.

“Ah! let us have it,” answered Cointet, with some curiosity.

“You will present me to-morrow to Mme. de Sononches, and do something definite for me; you will keep your word, in short; or I will clear off Sechard’s debts myself, sell my practice, and go into partnership with him. I will not be duped. You have spoken out, and I am doing the same. I have given proof, give me proof of your sincerity. You have all, and I have nothing. If you won’t do fairly by me, I know your cards, and I shall play for my own hand.”

The tall Cointet took his hat and umbrella, his face at the same time taking its Jesuitical expression, and out he went, bidding Petit-Claud come with him.

“You shall see, my friend, whether I have prepared your way for you,” said he.

The shrewd paper-manufacturer saw his danger at a glance; and saw, too, that with a man like Petit-Claud it was better to play above board. Partly to be prepared for contingencies, partly to satisfy his conscience, he had dropped a word or two to the point in the ear of the ex-consul-general, under the pretext of putting Mlle. de la Haye’s financial position before that gentleman.

“I have the man for Francoise,” he had said; “for with thirty thousand francs of dot, a girl must not expect too much nowadays.”

“We will talk it over later on,” answered Francis du Hautoy, ex-consul-general. “Mme. de Senonches’ positon has altered very much since Mme. de Bargeton went away; we very likely might marry Francoise to some elderly country gentleman.”

“She would disgrace herself if you did,” Cointet returned in his dry way. “Better marry her to some capable, ambitious young man; you could help him with your influence, and he would make a good position for his wife.”

“We shall see,” said Francis du Hautoy; “her godmother ought to be consulted first, in any case.”

When M. de Bargeton died, his wife sold the great house in the Rue du Minage. Mme. de Senonches, finding her own house scarcely large enough, persuaded M. de Senonches to buy the Hotel de Bargeton, the cradle of Lucien Chardon’s ambitions, the scene of the earliest events in his career. Zephirine de Senonches had it in mind to succeed to Mme. de Bargeton; she, too, would be a kind of queen in Angouleme; she would have “a salon,” and be a great lady, in short. There was a schism in Angouleme, a strife dating from the late M. de Bargeton’s duel with M. de Chandour. Some maintained that Louise de Negrepelisse was blameless, others believed in Stanislas de Chandour’s scandals. Mme. de Senonches declared for the Bargetons, and began by winning over that faction. Many frequenters of the Hotel de Bargeton had been so accustomed for years to their nightly game of cards in the house that they could not leave it, and Mme. de Senonches turned this fact to account. She received every evening, and certainly gained all the ground lost by Amelie de Chandour, who set up for a rival.

Francis du Hautoy, living in the inmost circle of nobility in Angouleme, went so far as to think of marrying Francoise to old M. de Severac, Mme. du Brossard having totally failed to capture that gentleman for her daughter; and when Mme. de Bargeton reappeared as the prefect’s wife, Zephirine’s hopes for her dear goddaughter waxed high, indeed. The Comtesse du Chatelet, so she argued, would be sure to use her influence for her champion.

Boniface Cointet had Angouleme at his fingers’ ends; he saw all the difficulties at a glance, and resolved to sweep them out of the way by a bold stroke that only a Tartuffe’s brain could invent. The puny lawyer was not a little amused to find his fellow-conspirator keeping his word with him; not a word did Petit-Claud utter; he respected the musings of his companion, and they walked the whole way from the paper-mill to the Rue du Minage in silence.

“Monsieur and madame are at breakfast” – this announcement met the ill-timed visitors on the steps.

“Take in our names, all the same,” said the tall Cointet; and feeling sure of his position, he followed immediately behind the servant and introduced his companion to the elaborately-affected Zephirine, who was breakfasting in company with M. Francis du Hautoy and Mlle. de la Haye. M. de Senonches had gone, as usual, for a day’s shooting over M. de Pimentel’s land.

“M. Petit-Claud is the young lawyer of whom I spoke to you, madame; he will go through the trust accounts when your fair ward comes of age.”

The ex-diplomatist made a quick scrutiny of Petit-Claud, who, for his part, was looking furtively at the “fair ward.” As for Zephirine, who heard of the matter for the first time, her surprise was so great that she dropped her fork.

Mlle. de la Haye, a shrewish young woman with an ill-tempered face, a waist that could scarcely be called slender, a thin figure, and colorless, fair hair, in spite of a certain little air that she had, was by no means easy to marry. The “parentage unknown” on her birth certificate was the real bar to her entrance into the sphere where her godmother’s affection stove to establish her. Mlle. de la Haye, ignorant of her real position, was very hard to please; the richest merchant in L’Houmeau had found no favor in her sight. Cointet saw the sufficiently significant expression of the young lady’s face at the sight of the little lawyer, and turning, beheld a precisely similar grimace on Petit-Claud’s countenance. Mme. de Senonches and Francis looked at each other, as if in search of an excuse for getting rid of the visitors. All this Cointet saw. He asked M. du Hautoy for the favor of a few minutes’ speech with him, and the pair went together into the drawing-room.

“Fatherly affection is blinding you, sir,” he said bluntly. “You will not find it an easy thing to marry your daughter; and, acting in your interest throughout, I have put you in a position from which you cannot draw back; for I am fond of Francoise, she is my ward. Now – Petit-Claud knows everything! His overweening ambition is a guarantee for our dear child’s happiness; for, in the first place, Francoise will do as she likes with her husband; and, in the second, he wants your influence. You can ask the new prefect for the post of crown attorney for him in the court here. M. Milaud is definitely appointed to Nevers, Petit-Claud will sell his practice, you will have no difficulty in obtaining a deputy public prosecutor’s place for him; and it will not be long before he becomes attorney for the crown, president of the court, deputy, what you will.”