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"Certainly, Mechinet, you are a different man ever since that visit of Miss Chandore." "Abominable talkers!" he had exclaimed, in a tone of voice which frightened them out of their wits. "Do you want to see me hanged?" But, if he had these attacks of rage, he felt not a moment's remorse. Miss Dionysia had completely bewitched him; and he judged M. Galpin's conduct as severely as she did.
At last, as three o'clock struck, M. Magloire and M. Folgat arrived; and Mechinet saw at once in their faces, that he had been mistaken, and that Jacques had not explained. Still, before M. Magloire, he did not dare inquire. "Here are the papers," he said simply, putting upon the table an immense box. Then, drawing M. Folgat aside, he asked, "What is the matter, pray?"
And she rushed out, leaving the dressmakers stupefied, gazing after her with open mouths, and asking themselves if the grand calamity had bereft the poor lady of reason. The clerk was still on the landing, fumbling in his pocket for the key of his room. "I want to speak to you instantly," said Dionysia. Mechinet was so utterly amazed, that he could not utter a word.
That lady was the Countess Claudieuse!" He looked as if he wished to pause to watch the effect of his revelation. But Mechinet was so impatient, that he forgot the modest character of his duty, and said hastily, "Go on; go on!" "One of the windows was half open," continued the vagrant, "and thus I could hear almost as well as I saw.
He made therefore no objection, when the clerk asked him to give a letter to M. de Boiscoran, and to bring back an answer. He acquitted himself, moreover, faithfully and honestly of his commission. But, because every thing had gone well once, it did not follow that Mechinet felt quite at peace.
Mechinet followed the two gentlemen as they hastened down the street; and the good people of Sauveterre, always on the lookout, were not a little scandalized at seeing their well-known magistrate, M. Galpin, in his home costume, he who generally was most scrupulously precise in his dress. Standing on their door-steps, they said to each other, "Something very important must have happened.
Grandpapa Chandore began to comprehend. "After all," he said, "you have not told me where we are going." "To my dressmakers." "To the Misses Mechinet?" "Yes." M. de Chandore was sure now. "We shall not find them at home," he said. "This is Sunday; and they are no doubt at church." "We shall find them, grandpapa; for they always take tea at half-past seven, for their brother's, the clerk's sake.
But in precise proportion as the charges had accumulated, and the evidence had become overwhelming, he had, so far from becoming demoralized, seemed to recover his assurance. "There is something curious about it," growled Mechinet. M. Daubigeon, on the other hand, said nothing; but when M. de Boiscoran came out of his dressing-room, fully dressed and ready, he said, "One more question, sir."
"Sit down, M. Mechinet," she said, "and listen to me." He put his candlestick on a table, and sat down. "You know me, don't you?" asked Dionysia. "Certainly I do, madam." "You have surely heard that I am to be married to M. de Boiscoran?" The clerk started up, as if he had been moved by a spring, beat his forehead furiously with his hand, and said, "Ah, what a fool I was! Now I see."
Seignebos, to M. Magloire, or to good M. Mechinet? No; for, bearing all the responsibility on his own shoulders, he had carefully weighed the contrary chances of the terrible game in which he proposed to engage, and in which the stakes were the honor and the life of a man.
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