Part 31

“Stop!” cried Godefroid, placing himself between the Vauthier and the door. “Look here, what interest have you in the matter?”

“Gracious!” said the old woman, eyeing Godefroid cautiously, “you’re a bold one, anyhow.”

She went to the door of the outer room and bolted it; then she came back and sat down on a chair beside the fire.

“On my word of honor, and as sure as my name is Vauthier, I took you for a student until I saw you giving your wood to that old Bernard. Ha! you’re a sly one; and what a play-actor! I was so certain you were a ninny! Look here, will you guarantee me a thousand francs? As sure as the sun shines, my old Barbet and Monsieur Metivier have promised me five hundred to keep my eyes open for them.”

“They! five hundred francs! nonsense!” cried Godefroid. “I know their ways; two hundred is the very most, my good woman, and even that is only promised; you can’t assign it. But I will say this: if you will put me in the way to do the business they want to do with Monsieur Bernard I will pay you four hundred francs. Now, then, how does the matter stand?”

“They have advanced fifteen hundred francs upon the work,” said Madame Vauthier, making no further effort at deception, “and the old man has signed an acknowledgment for three thousand. They wouldn’t do it under a hundred per cent. He thought he could easily pay them out of his book, but they have arranged to get the better of him there. It was they who sent Cartier here, and the other creditors.”

Here Godefroid gave the old woman a glance of ironical intelligence, which showed her that he saw through the role she was playing in the interest of her proprietor. Her words were, in fact, a double illumination to Godefroid; the curious scene between himself and the gardener was now explained.

“Well,” she resumed, “they have got him now. Where is he to find three thousand francs? They intend to offer him five hundred the day he puts the first volume of his book into their hands, and five hundred for each succeeding volume. The affair isn’t in their names; they have put it into the hands of a publisher whom Barbet set up on the quai des Augustins.”

“What, that little fellow?”

“Yes, that little Morand, who was formerly Barbet’s clerk. It seems they expect a good bit of money out of the affair.”

“There’s a good bit to spend,” said Godefroid, with a significant grimace.

Just then a gentle rap was heard at the door of the outer room. Godefroid, glad of the interruption, having got all he wanted to know out of Madame Vauthier, went to open it.

“What is said, is said, Madame Vauthier,” he remarked as he did so. The visitor was Monsieur Bernard.

“Ah! Monsieur Bernard,” cried the widow when she saw him, “I’ve got a letter downstairs for you.”

The old man followed her down a few steps. When they were out of hearing from Godefroid’s room she stopped.

“No,” she said, “I haven’t any letter; I only wanted to tell you to beware of that young man; he belongs to a publishing house.”

“That explains everything,” thought the old man.

He went back to his neighbor with a very different expression of countenance.

The look of calm coldness with which Monsieur Bernard now entered the room contrasted so strongly with the frank and cordial air he had worn not an instant earlier that Godefroid was forcibly struck by it.

“Pardon me, monsieur,” said the old man, stiffly, “but you have shown me many favors, and a benefactor creates certain rights in those he benefits.”

Godefroid bowed.

“I, who for the last five years have endured a passion like that of our Lord, I, who for thirty-six years represented social welfare, government, public vengeance, have, as you may well believe, no illusions--no, I have nothing left but anguish. Well, monsieur, I was about to say that your little act in closing the door of my wretched lair, that simple little thing, was to me the glass of water Bossuet tells of. Yes, I did find in my heart, that exhausted heart which cannot weep, just as my withered body cannot sweat, I did find a last drop of the elixir which makes us fancy in our youth that all human beings are noble, and I came to offer you my hand; I came to bring you that celestial flower of belief in good--”

“Monsieur Bernard,” said Godefroid, remembering the kind old Alain’s lessons. “I have done nothing to obtain your gratitude. You are quite mistaken.”

“Ah, that is frankness indeed!” said the former magistrate. “Well, it pleases me. I was about to reproach you; pardon me, I now esteem you. So you are a publisher, and you have come here to get my work away from Barbet, Metivier, and Morand? All is now explained. You are making me advances in money as they did, only you do it with some grace.”

“Did Madame Vauthier just tell you that I was employed by a publisher?” asked Godefroid.

“Yes.”

“Well, then, Monsieur Bernard, before I can say how much I can give over what those other gentlemen offer, I must know the terms on which you stand with them.”

“That is fair,” said Monsieur Bernard, who seemed rather pleased to find himself the object of a competition by which he might profit. “Do you know what my work is?”