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"Cousin," said Marguerite to Pierquin, "and you, monsieur," she said to Monsieur de Solis, "I know you have been to see my father during my absence, and I thank you for that proof of friendship. You will not do less I am sure for two poor girls who will be in need of counsel. Let us understand each other.
Happily, the notary was almost a relation, in this wise: The grandfather of Monsieur Claes had married a Pierquin of Antwerp, of the same family as the Pierquins of Douai. Since the marriage the latter, though strangers to the Claes, claimed them as cousins.
Oh! could my body yield your hateful Alkahest, I would fling myself upon those fires with joy, since your glory, your delight is in that unfound secret. But our children, Claes, our children! what will become of them if you do not soon discover this hellish thing? Do you know why Pierquin came to-day? He came for thirty thousand francs, which you owe and cannot pay.
"Pierquin," said Claes, rising from the bench, "do all that is necessary to protect the rights of my children; but spare us the distress of selling the things that belonged to my dear " he was unable to continue; but he spoke with so noble an air and in a tone of such deep feeling that Marguerite took her father's hand and kissed it. "To-morrow, then," said Pierquin.
Pierquin, however, found so many good reasons to reject the suggested matches as unworthy of Marguerite's position, that the confabulators glanced at each other and smiled, and took malicious pleasure in prolonging this truly provincial method of annoyance.
Pierquin, the lawyer, was destined, at the close of February, to strike the death-blow of the fragile woman who, in the words of the Abbe de Solis, was well-nigh without sin. "Madame," said Pierquin, seizing a moment when her daughters could not hear the conversation, "Monsieur Claes has directed me to borrow three hundred thousand francs on his property.
Madame Pierquin also left her father's house to do the honors of a fine mansion which Pierquin had built, and where he desired to live in all the dignity of rank; for his practise was sold, and his uncle des Racquets had died and left him a large property scraped together by slow economy.
"That is where my difficulties begin," she said, looking alternately at Pierquin and de Solis; "I cannot ask it from my uncle, who has already spent much money for us and has given bonds as my father's security." "You have friends!" cried Pierquin, suddenly perceiving that the demoiselles Claes were "four-hundred-thousand-franc girls," after all. Emmanuel de Solis looked tenderly at Marguerite.
Like a Titan he had lifted the world, and the world fell on his breast and crushed him. This gigantic grief, so manfully controlled, affected Pierquin and Emmanuel powerfully, and each felt moved at times to offer this man the necessary money to renew his search, so contagious are the convictions of genius!
Though Pierquin belonged to the class of men who regard marriage as the accomplishment of a social duty and the means of transmitting property, and though he was indifferent to which sister he should marry so long as both had the same name and the same dower, he did perceive that the two were, to use his own expression, "romantic and sentimental girls," adjectives employed by commonplace people to ridicule the gifts which Nature sows with grudging hand along the furrows of humanity.
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