“Your son is on the right track,” the fat Cointet said at length.
“Very well, pay his debts,” returned old Séchard.
“By all means, if he will take us into partnership,” said the tall Cointet.
“You are extortioners!” cried old Séchard. “You have been suing him under Métivier’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 Séchard 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 Séchard must be set at liberty before those experiments can be made; and David Séchard, 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 Séchard, 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 Séchard was here only a day or two ago; he came to ask us some questions as to papermaking. 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 tomorrow to Mme. de Sononches, and do something definite for me; you will keep your word, in short; or I will clear off Séchard’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 Françoise,” he had said; “for with thirty thousand francs of dot, a girl must not expect too
