“What does your friend think of my cousin’s condition?”

This man’s clear, business-like way of putting the facts of the case frightened Mme. de Marville; she felt that his keen gaze read the thoughts of a heart as greedy as La Cibot’s own.

“In six weeks the property will change hands.”

The Presidente dropped her eyes.

“Poor man!” she sighed, vainly striving after a dolorous expression.

“Have you any message, madame, for M. Leboeuf?  I am taking the train to Mantes.”

“Yes.  Wait a moment, and I will write to ask him to dine with us to-morrow.  I want to see him, so that he may act in concert to repair the injustice to which you have fallen a victim.”

The Presidente left the room.  Fraisier saw himself a justice of the peace.  He felt transformed at the thought; he grew stouter; his lungs were filled with the breath of success, the breeze of prosperity.  He dipped into the mysterious reservoirs of volition for fresh and strong doses of the divine essence.  To reach success, he felt, as Remonencq half felt, that he was ready for anything, for crime itself, provided that no proofs of it remained.  He had faced the Presidente boldly; he had transmuted conjecture into reality; he had made assertions right and left, all to the end that she might authorize him to protect her interests and win her influence.  As he stood there, he represented the infinite misery of two lives, and the no less boundless desires of two men.  He spurned the squalid horrors of the Rue de la Perle.  He saw the glitter of a thousand crowns in fees from La Cibot, and five thousand francs from the Presidente.  This meant an abode such as befitted his future prospects.  Finally, he was repaying Dr. Poulain.

There are hard, ill-natured beings, goaded by distress or disease into active malignity, that yet entertain diametrically opposed sentiments with a like degree of vehemence.  If Richelieu was a good hater, he was no less a good friend.  Fraisier, in his gratitude, would have let himself be cut in two for Poulain.

So absorbed was he in these visions of a comfortable and prosperous life, that he did not see the Presidente come in with the letter in her hand, and she, looking at him, thought him less ugly now than at first.  He was about to be useful to her, and as soon as a tool belongs to us we look upon it with other eyes.

“M.  Fraisier,” said she, “you have convinced me of your intelligence, and I think that you can speak frankly.”

Fraisier replied by an eloquent gesture.

“Very well,” continued the lady, “I must ask you to give a candid reply to this question:  Are we, either of us, M. de Marville or I, likely to be compromised, directly or indirectly, by your action in this matter?”