Philippe and Monsieur Hochon then went opposite ways, seeing other people approaching.
Never, at any period of his life, had Jean-Jacques Rouget been so miserable as since his nephew Philippe’s first visit. Flore, in great terror, had a presentiment of some danger hanging over Max. Tired of her master, and fearing that he would live to a great age, as her criminal practices had so little effect on him, she hit on the very simple plan of leaving the place and going to Paris to be married to Maxence, after extracting from Rouget the bonds bearing fifty thousand francs a year. The old fellow, warned not indeed by any care for his heirs, nor by personal avarice, but by his passion for Flore, refused to give her the securities, pointing out that he had left her everything. The unhappy man knew how devotedly she loved Maxence, and he foresaw that she would desert him as soon as she should be rich enough to marry. When, after lavishing her tenderest coaxing, Flore found her request denied, she tried severity: she never spoke to her master, she sent Védie to wait upon him, and the woman one morning found the old man with his eyes red from having wept all night. For a week Père Rouget had his breakfast alone, and heaven knows how!
So, the day after his conversation with Monsieur Hochon, when Philippe paid his uncle a second visit, he found him much altered. Flore remained in the room near the old man, on whom she shed tender glances, speaking kindly to him, and playing the farce so well, that Philippe understood the dangers of the situation merely from the solicitude paraded for his benefit. Gilet, whose policy it was to avoid any collision with Philippe, did not appear. After studying Père Rouget and Flore with a keen eye, the Colonel decided on a bold stroke.
“Goodbye, my dear uncle,” he said, rising, so as to seen about to leave.
“Oh, do not go yet,” cried the old man, who was basking in Flore’s pretended affection. “Dine with us, Philippe.”
“I will, if you will first take an hour’s walk with me.”
“Monsieur is very ailing,” said Mademoiselle Brazier. “He would not go out driving just now,” she added, turning to the old man, and looking at him with the fixed gaze that sometimes quells a madman.
Philippe took Flore by the arm, made her look at him, and gazed at her just as fixedly as she had stared at her victim.
“Tell me, mademoiselle,” said he, “am I to infer that my uncle is not free to come for a walk alone with me.”
“Of course he is, monsieur,” said Flore, who could hardly make any other reply.
“Well, then, come, uncle. Now, mademoiselle, give him his hat and stick.”
“But, as a rule, he never goes out without me. Do you monsieur?”
“Yes, Philippe, yes; I always want her—”
“We had better go in the carriage,” said Flore.
“Yes, let us go in the carriage,” cried the old man in his anxiety to reconcile his two tyrants.
“Uncle, you will come for a walk, and with me, or I come here no more. For the town will be in the right; you are under Mademoiselle Flore Brazier’s thumb.—My uncle loves you, well and good,” he went on, fixing a leaden eye on Flore. “You do not love him—that too is quite in order. But that you should make the old man miserable? There we draw the line. Those who want to inherit a fortune must earn it.—Now uncle, are you coming?”
Philippe saw an agony of hesitancy depicted on the face of the poor helpless creature, whose eyes wandered first to Flore and then to his nephew.
“So that is how it stands!” said the Colonel. “Very good! Goodbye, uncle. As for you, mademoiselle—your servant!”
He turned round quickly as he reached the door, and again detected a threatening gesture from Flore to his uncle. “Uncle,” said he, “if you will come for a walk with me, I will meet you at your door. I am going to Monsieur Hochon for ten minutes. … If you and I do not get our walk, I will back myself to send some people walking I could name.”
And Philippe crossed the avenue to call on the Hochons.
Anyone can imagine the scene in the family which resulted from Philippe’s revelation to Monsieur Hochon. At nine o’clock that morning old Monsieur Héron had made his appearance with a bundle of papers, and found a fire in the large room, lighted by the master’s orders, quite against the general rule. Madame Hochon, dressed at this unconscionable hour, was sitting in her armchair by the fire. The two grandsons, warned by Adolphine of a storm gathering over their heads since yesterday, had been ordered to stay at home. Having been summoned by Gritte, they were chilled by the paraphernalia of ceremony displayed by their grandparents, whose cold wrath had hung over them for the past twenty-four hours.
“Do not rise for them,” said the old man to Monsieur Héron. “You see before you two wretches unworthy of forgiveness.”
“Oh! grandpapa!” said François.
“Silence,” said the solemn old man. “I know all about your life at night and your intimacy with Monsieur Maxence Gilet; but you will not meet him again at la Cognette’s at one in the morning, for you are not to go out of this house again till you set out for your respective destinations.—So you ruined Fario? You have many a time been within an ace of finding yourselves in a criminal court?—Be silent!” he exclaimed, seeing Baruch open his mouth. “You both owe money to Monsieur Maxence, who for six years past has been supplying you with it for your debaucheries.—Listen, now, to the accounts of my guardianship; we will talk afterwards. You will see from these documents whether you can play tricks with me, play tricks on the family and the laws of family honor by betraying the secrets of the house, and repeating to Monsieur Maxence Gilet what is
