“Nothing and everything,” replied la Peyrade.  “You and your sister are much too clever to break openly with a man who, at the risk of his reputation, has put a million in your hands.  But I am not so simple that I don’t know how to detect changes.  There are people about you who have set themselves, in an underhand way, to destroy me; and Brigitte has only one thought, and that is, how to find a decent way of not keeping her promises.  Men like me don’t wait till their claims are openly protested, and I certainly do not intend to impose myself on any family; still, I was far, I acknowledge, from expecting such treatment.”

“Come, come,” said Thuillier, kindly, seeing in the barrister’s eye the glint of a tear of which he was completely the dupe, “I don’t know what Brigitte may have been doing to you, but one thing is very certain:  I have never ceased to be your most devoted friend.”

“No,” said la Peyrade, “since that mishap about the cross I am only good, as the saying is, to throw to the dogs.  How could I have struggled against secret influences?  Possibly it is that pamphlet, about which you have talked a great deal too much, that has hindered your appointment.  The ministers are so stupid!  They would rather wait and have their hand forced by the fame of the publication than do the thing with a good grace as the reward of your services.  But these are political mysteries which would never enter your sister’s mind.”

“The devil!” cried Thuillier.  “I think I’ve got a pretty observing eye, and yet I can’t see the slightest change in Brigitte toward you.”

“Oh, yes!” said la Peyrade, “your eyesight is so good that you have never seen perpetually beside her that Madame de Godollo, whom she now thinks she can’t live without.”

“Ha, ha!” said Thuillier, slyly, “so it is a little jealousy, is it, in our mind?”

“Jealousy!” retorted la Peyrade.  “I don’t know if that’s the right word, but certainly your sister—­whose mind is nothing above the ordinary, and to whom I am surprised that a man of your intellectual superiority allows a supremacy in your household which she uses and abuses—­”

“How can I help it, my dear fellow,” interrupted Thuillier, sucking in the compliment; “she is so absolutely devoted to me.”

“I admit the weakness, but, I repeat, your sister doesn’t fit into your groove.  Well, I say that when a man of the value which you are good enough to recognize in me, does her the honor to consult her and devote himself to her as I have done, it can hardly be agreeable to him to find himself supplanted by a woman who comes from nobody knows where—­and all because of a few trumpery chairs and tables she has helped her to buy!”

“With women, as you know very well,” replied Thuillier, “household affairs have the first place.”

“And Brigitte, who wants a finger in everything, also assumes to carry matters with a high hand in affairs of the heart.  As you are so extraordinarily clear-sighted you ought to have seen that in Brigitte’s mind nothing is less certain than my marriage with Mademoiselle Colleville; and yet my love has been solemnly authorized by you.”