“How so?” asked la Peyrade, with some curiosity.

“Eh! monsieur, let him only get wind of that money, and he’d snap it up at a mouthful; it would all go into his inventions of perpetual motion and other machines of various kinds which have already ruined him, and me, too.”

“Then,” said la Peyrade, “your desire is that this legacy should remain completely unknown, not only to your master but to the judges of the Academy?”

“How clever monsieur is, and how well he understands things!” she replied, smiling.

“And also,” continued the barrister, “you don’t want to keep that money openly in your possession?”

“For fear my master should find it out and get it away from me?  Exactly.  Besides, as monsieur will understand, I shouldn’t be sorry, in order to supply the poor dear man with extra comforts, that the sum should bear interest.”

“And the highest possible interest,” said the barrister.

“Oh! as for that, monsieur, five or six per cent.”

“Very good; then it is not only about the memorial to the Academy for the prize of virtue, but also about an investment of your legacy that you have so long been desirous of consulting me?”

“Monsieur is so kind, so charitable, so encouraging!”

“The memorial, after I have made a few inquiries, will be easy enough; but an investment, offering good security, the secret of which you desire to keep, is much less readily obtained.”

“Ah! if I dared to—­” said the pious woman, humbly.

“What?” asked la Peyrade.

“Monsieur understands me?”

“I? not the least in the world.”

“And yet I prayed earnestly just now that monsieur might be willing to keep this money for me.  I should feel such confidence if it were in his hands; I know he would return it to me, and never speak of it.”

La Peyrade gathered, at this instant, the fruit of his comedy of legal devotion to the necessitous classes.  The choir of porters chanting his praises to the skies could alone have inspired this servant-woman with the boundless confidence of which he found himself the object.  His thoughts reverted instantly to Dutocq and his notes, and he was not far from thinking that this woman had been sent to him by Providence.  But the more he was inclined to profit by this chance to win his independence, the more he felt the necessity of seeming to yield only to her importunity; consequently his objections were many.

Moreover, he had no great belief in the character of his client, and did not care, as the common saying is, to uncover Saint Peter to cover Saint Paul; in other words, to substitute for a creditor who, after all, was his accomplice, a woman who might at any time become exacting and insist in repayment in some public manner that would injure his reputation.  He decided, therefore, to play the game with a high hand.