United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In undressing, Vaudrey fortunately found this document which he had folded in four and left in his waistcoat pocket: "On the first of June next, I will pay to the order of Monsieur Adolphe Gochard of No. 9, Rue Albouy, the sum of One Hundred Thousand Francs, value received in cash. "SULPICE VAUDREY, "Rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin, 37." He turned pale on reading it. If Adrienne had seen it!
As the result of this conversation, he felt uncomfortable. The man had left an odor of pollution, as it were, behind him. Vaudrey must needs be soon reassured respecting the Gochard paper. In visiting Marianne, he observed that his mistress was a shrewd woman.
It was Madame Dujarrier who had introduced him and Marianne would have already availed herself of his courtesy, if she had believed herself able to repay it at the appointed date. "And where does this Monsieur Gochard live?" Vaudrey promptly asked. "Oh! it would not be necessary for you to go to see him," replied Marianne.
She could at once inform Vaudrey that her headache had vanished. "And then he bores me! Especially now." Matters, however, must not be abruptly changed. Suppose Rosas should take a sudden fancy to fly off again! Besides, she had mutual interests with the minister, there was an account to be settled. "The Gochard paper? Bah! he will pay it. More-ever, I am not involved in that."
The Gochard paper! The debt of the past! The price of the nights spent with Marianne! The hundred thousand francs for that girl's kisses! Sulpice felt in the weakness increased by a growing fever, that his self-possession was leaving him. All his ideas clashed confusedly. Amid the chaos, only one clear idea remained; a hundred and sixty thousand francs had to be found. Where were they to be found?
In the course of his troublesome reflections concerning the Gochard paper, Vaudrey persistently thought of that fat, powerful man who laughed and harangued in a loud voice in the greenroom of the ballet, as he patted with his fat fingers the delicate chin of Marie Launay. Why! if he were willing, this Molina Molina the Tumbler! for him it is a mere bagatelle, a hundred thousand francs!
She informed him immediately that Claire Dujarrier whom she had seen, would secure a renewal from Gochard, who was unknown to Vaudrey, from three months to three months until the expiration of six months in consideration of an additional twenty thousand francs for each period of ninety days. "I did not understand that at first," Marianne began by remarking.
Gochard only needed a bill of exchange in his favor for one hundred thousand francs at three months' date, plus interest at five per cent. This Gochard was a very straightforward capitalist, who did not make it a business to lend money, but merely to oblige.
Then, too, the date of payment was far away. He calculated that by economy as to his personal income and his official salary he could meet the bill to Gochard, whose very name sometimes made him laugh.
The Dujarrier merely retained twenty thousand francs as her commission and handed only eighty thousand to Marianne. "But Vaudrey's acceptance to Gochard is for one hundred thousand!" "You are silly, my girl! What if I lose the balance? If your minister should not pay?" "What do you mean?" "Stranger things have happened, my little one."
Word Of The Day