第64章 CHAPTER X(4)

"My good Max," said the old man, glad to get the protection of the soldier who, by agreement with Flore, always took his side in a dispute, "I swear by all that is most sacred, that I now hear this news for the first time. I have never written to my sister; my father made me promise not to leave her any of my property; to leave it to the Church sooner than to her. Well, I won't receive my sister Agathe to this house, or her sons--"

"Your father was wrong, my dear Jean-Jacques, and Madame Brazier is still more wrong," answered Max. "Your father no doubt had his reasons, but he is dead, and his hatred should die with him. Your sister is your sister, and your nephews are your nephews. You owe it to yourself to welcome them, and you owe it to us as well. What would people say in Issoudun? Thunder! I've got enough upon my shoulders as it is, without hearing people say that we shut you up and don't allow you a will of your own, or that we influence you against your relations and are trying to get hold of your property. The devil take me if I don't pull up stakes and be off, if that sort of calumny is to be flung at me! the other is bad enough! Let's eat our breakfast."

Flore, who was now as mild as a weasel, helped Vedie to set the table.

Old Rouget, full of admiration for Max, took him by both hands and led him into the recess of a window, saying in a low voice:--

"Ah! Max, if I had a son, I couldn't love him better than I love you.

Flore is right: you two are my real family. You are a man of honor, Max, and what you have just said is true."

"You ought to receive and entertain your sister and her son, but not change the arrangements you have made about your property," said Max.

"In that way you will do what is right in the eyes of the world, and yet keep your promise to your father."

"Well! my dear loves!" cried Flore, gayly, "the salmi is getting cold.

Come, my old rat, here's a wing for you," she said, smiling on Jean-

Jacques.

At the words, the long-drawn face of the poor creature lost its cadaverous tints, the smile of a Theriaki flickered on his pendent lips; but he was seized with another fit of coughing; for the joy of being taken back to favor excited as violent an emotion as the punishment itself. Flore rose, pulled a little cashmere shawl from her own shoulders, and tied it round the old man's throat, exclaiming:

"How silly to put yourself in such a way about nothing. There, you old goose, that will do you good; it has been next my heart--"

"What a good creature!" said Rouget to Max, while Flore went to fetch a black velvet cap to cover the nearly bald head of the old bachelor.

"As good as she is beautiful"; answered Max, "but she is quick- tempered, like all people who carry their hearts in their hands."

The baldness of this sketch may displease some, who will think the flashes of Flore's character belong to the sort of realism which a painter ought to leave in shadow. Well! this scene, played again and again with shocking variations, is, in its coarse way and its horrible veracity, the type of such scenes played by women on whatever rung of the social ladder they are perched, when any interest, no matter what, draws them from their own line of obedience and induces them to grasp at power. In their eyes, as in those of politicians, all means to an end are justifiable. Between Flore Brazier and a duchess, between a duchess and the richest bourgeoise, between a bourgeoise and the most luxuriously kept mistress, there are no differences except those of the education they have received, and the surroundings in which they live. The pouting of a fine lady is the same thing as the violence of a Rabouilleuse. At all levels, bitter sayings, ironical jests, cold contempt, hypocritical complaints, false quarrels, win as much success as the low outbursts of this Madame Everard of Issoudun.

Max began to relate, with much humor, the tale of Fario and his barrow, which made the old man laugh. Vedie and Kouski, who came to listen, exploded in the kitchen, and as to Flore, she laughed convulsively. After breakfast, while Jean-Jacques read the newspapers (for they subscribed to the "Constitutionel" and the "Pandore"), Max carried Flore to his own quarters.

"Are you quite sure he has not made any other will since the one in which he left the property to you?"

"He hasn't anything to write with," she answered.

"He might have dictated it to some notary," said Max; "we must look out for that. Therefore it is well to be cordial to the Bridaus, and at the same time endeavor to turn those mortgages into money. The notaries will be only too glad to make the transfers; it is grist to their mill. The Funds are going up; we shall conquer Spain, and deliver Ferdinand VII. and the Cortez, and then they will be above par. You and I could make a good thing out of it by putting the old fellow's seven hundred and fifty thousand francs into the Funds at eighty-nine. Only you must try to get it done in your name; it will be so much secured anyhow."

"A capital idea!" said Flore.

"And as there will be an income of fifty thousand francs from eight hundred and ninety thousand, we must make him borrow one hundred and forty thousand francs for two years, to be paid back in two instalments. In two years, we shall get one hundred thousand francs IN Paris, and ninety thousand here, and risk nothing."

"If it were not for you, my handsome Max, what would become of me now?" she said.

"Oh! to-morrow night at Mere Cognette's, after I have seen the Parisians, I shall find a way to make the Hochons themselves get rid of them."

"Ah! what a head you've got, my angel! You are a love of a man."

The place Saint-Jean is at the centre of a long street called at the upper end the rue Grand Narette, and at the lower the rue Petite Narette. The word "Narette" is used in Berry to express the same lay of the land as the Genoese word "salita" indicates,--that is to say, a steep street. The Grand Narette rises rapidly from the place Saint-