“Monsieur,” said Paul to Solonet, “I have to thank you for the care you have devoted to the conciliation of our interests. This arrangement solves all difficulties more happily than I had dared to hope—that is to say, if it suits you, madame,” he added, turning to Madame Evangelista, “for I will have nothing to say to any plan that is not equally satisfactory to you.”
“I?” said she. “Whatever will make my children happy will delight me. Do not consider me at all.”
“But that must not be,” said Paul eagerly. “If your comfort and dignity were not secured, Natalie and I should be more distressed about it than you yourself would be.”
“Do not be uneasy on that score, Monsieur le Comte,” said Solonet.
“Ah!” thought Maître Mathias, “they mean to make him kiss the rod before they scourge him.”
“Be quite easy,” Solonet went on; “there is such a spirit of speculation in Bordeaux just now, that investments for annuities are to be made on very advantageous terms. After handing over to you the fifty thousand crowns due to you on the sale of the house and furniture, I believe I may guarantee to madame a residue of two hundred thousand francs. This I undertake to invest in an annuity on a first mortgage on an estate worth a million, and to get ten percent, twenty-five thousand francs a year. Thus we should unite two very nearly equal fortunes. Mademoiselle Natalie will bring forty thousand francs a year in five percents, and a hundred and fifty thousand francs in money, which will yield seven thousand francs a year; total, forty-seven as against your forty-six thousand.”
“That is quite plain,” said Paul.
As he ended his speech, Solonet had cast a sidelong glance at his client, not unseen by Mathias, and which was as much as to say, “Bring up your reserve.”
“Why!” cried Madame Evangelista, in a tone of joy that seemed quite genuine, “I can give Natalie my diamonds; they must be worth at least a hundred thousand francs.”
“We can have them valued,” said Solonet, “and this entirely alters the case. Nothing, then, can hinder Monsieur le Comte from giving a discharge in full for the sums due to Mademoiselle Natalie as her share of her father’s fortune, or the betrothed couple from taking the guardian’s accounts as passed, at the reading of the contract. If madame, with truly Spanish magnificence, despoils herself to fulfill her obligations within a hundred thousand francs of the sum-total, it is but fair to release her.”
“Nothing could be fairer,” said Paul. “I am only overpowered by so much generosity.”
“Is not my daughter my second self?” said Madame Evangelista.
Maître Mathias detected an expression of joy on Madame Evangelista’s face when she saw the difficulties so nearly set aside; and this, and the sudden recollection of the diamonds, brought out like fresh troops, confirmed all his suspicions.
“The scene was planned between them,” thought he, “as gamblers pack the cards when some pigeon is to be rooked. So the poor boy I have known from his cradle is to be plucked alive by a mother-in-law, done brown by love, and ruined by his wife? After taking such care of his fine estate, am I to see it gobbled up in a single evening? Three millions and a-half mortgaged, in fact, to guarantee eleven hundred thousand francs of her portion, which these two women will make him throw away—”
As he thus discerned in Madame Evangelista’s soul a scheme which was not dishonest or criminal—which was not thieving, or cheating, or swindling—which was not based on any evil or blamable feeling, but yet contained the germ of every crime, Maître Mathias was neither shocked nor generously indignant. He was not a misanthrope; he was an old lawyer, inured by his business to the keen self-interest of men of the world, to their ingenious treachery, more deadly than a bold highway murder committed by some poor devil who is guillotined with due solemnity. In the higher ranks these passages of arms, these diplomatic discussions, are like the little dark corners in which every kind of filth is shot.
Maître Mathias, very sorry for his client, cast a long look into the future, and saw no hope of good.
“Well, we must take the field with the same weapons,” said he to himself, “and beat them on their own ground.”
At this juncture Paul, Solonet, and Madame Evangelista, dismayed by the old man’s silence, were feeling the necessity of this stern censor’s approbation to sanction these arrangements, and all three looked at him.
“Well, my dear sir, and what do you think of this?” asked Paul.
“This is what I think,” replied the uncompromising and conscientious old man, “you are not rich enough to commit such princely follies. The estate of Lanstrac, valued at three percent, is worth one million of francs, including the furniture; the farms of le Grassol and le Guadet, with the vineyards of Bellerose, are worth another million; your two residences and furniture a third million. To meet these three millions, yielding an income of forty-seven thousand two hundred francs, Mademoiselle Natalie shows eight hundred thousand francs in the funds, and let us say one hundred thousand francs’ worth of diamonds—at a hypothetical valuation! Also, one hundred and fifty thousand francs in cash—one million and fifty thousand francs in all. Then, in the face of these facts, my friend here triumphantly asserts that we are uniting equal fortunes! He requires us to stand indebted in a hundred thousand francs to our children, since we are to give the lady a discharge in full, by taking the guardian’s accounts as passed, for a sum of eleven hundred and fifty-six thousand francs, while receiving only one million and fifty thousand!
“You can listen to this nonsense with a lover’s rapture; and do you suppose that old Mathias, who is not
