"I have pitched upon you to reconcile the two.""Then you have pitched upon the wrong man," said Perrin bluntly.He added obsequiously, "I am too much your friend.She has been talking you over, no doubt; but you have a friend, an Ulysses, who is deaf to the siren's voice.I will be no party to such a transaction.I will not co-operate to humbug my friend and rob him of his rights."If Josephine was inferior to the notary in petty sharpness, she was his superior in the higher kinds of sagacity; and particularly in instinctive perception of character.Her eye flashed with delight at the line Perrin was now taking with Raynal.The latter speedily justified her expectations: he just told Perrin to be off, and send him a more accommodating notary.
"A more accommodating notary!" screamed Perrin, stung to madness by this reproach."There is not a more accommodating notary in Europe.
Ungrateful man! is this the return for all my zeal, my integrity, my unselfishness? Is there another agent in the world who would have let such a bargain as Beaurepaire fall into your hands? It serves me right for deviating from the rules of business.Send me another agent--oh!"The honest soldier was confused.The lawyer's eloquence overpowered him.He felt guilty.Josephine saw his simplicity, and made a cut with a woman's two-edged sword."Sir," said she coolly, "do you not see it is an affair of money? This is his way of saying, Pay me handsomely for so unusual a commission.""And I'll pay him double," cried Raynal, catching the idea; "don't be alarmed, I'll pay you for it.""And my zeal, my devotion?"
"Put 'em in figures."
"And my prob--?"
"Add it up."
"And my integ--?"
"Add them together: and don't bother me.""I see! I see! my poor soldier.You are no match for a woman's tongue.""Nor, for a notary's.Go to h---, and send in your bill!" roared the soldier in a fury."Well, will you go?" and he marched at him.
The notary scuttled out, with something between a snarl and a squeak.
Josephine hid her face in her hands.
"What is the matter with you?" inquired Raynal."Not crying again, surely!""Me! I never cry--hardly.I hid my face because I could not help laughing.You frightened me, sir," said she: then very demurely, "Iwas afraid you were going to beat him."
"No, no; a good soldier never leathers a civilian if he can possibly help it; it looks so bad; and before a lady!""Oh, I would have forgiven you, monsieur," said Josephine benignly, and something like a little sun danced in her eye.
"Now, mademoiselle, since my referee has proved a pig, it is your turn.Choose you a mutual friend."Josephine hesitated."Ours is so young.You know him very well.
You are doubtless the commandant of whom I once heard him speak with such admiration: his name is Riviere, Edouard Riviere.""Know him? he is my best officer, out and out." And without a moment's hesitation he took Edouard's present address, and accepted that youthful Daniel as their referee; then looked at his watch and marched off to his public duties with sabre clanking at his heels.
The notary went home gnashing his teeth.His sweet revenge was turned to wormwood this day.Raynal's parting commissions rang in his ear; in his bitter mood the want of logical sequence in the two orders disgusted him.
So he inverted them.
He sent in a thundering bill the very next morning, but postponed the other commission till his dying day.
As for Josephine, she came into the drawing-room beaming with love and happiness, and after kissing both her mother and Rose with gentle violence, she let them know the strange turn things had taken.
And she whispered to Rose, "Only think, YOUR Edouard to be OURreferee!"
Rose blushed and bent over her work; and wondered how Edouard would discharge so grave an office.
The matter approached a climax; for, as the reader is aware, Edouard was hourly expected at Beaurepaire.
He did not come; but it was not his fault.On receiving Rose's letter he declined to stay another hour at his uncle's.
He flung himself on his horse; and, before he was well settled on the stirrups, the animal shied violently at a wheelbarrow some fool had left there; and threw Edouard on the stones of the courtyard.
He jumped up in a moment and laughed at Marthe's terror; meantime a farm-servant caught the nag and brought him back to his work.
But when Edouard went to put his hand on the saddle, he found it would not obey him."Wait a minute," said he; "my arm is benumbed.""Let me see!" said the farmer, and examined the limb himself;"benumbed? yes; and no wonder.Jacques, get on the brute and ride for the surgeon.""Are you mad, uncle?" cried Edouard."I can't spare my horse, and Iwant no surgeon; it will be well directly.""It will be worse before it is better."
"I don't know what you mean, uncle; it is only numbed, ah! it hurts when I rub it.""It is worse than numbed, boy; it is broken.""Broken? nonsense:" and he looked at it in piteous bewilderment:
"how can it be broken? it does not hurt except when I touch it.""It WILL hurt: I know all about it.I broke mine fifteen years ago:
fell off a haystack."
"Oh, how unfortunate I am!" cried Edouard, piteously."But I will go to Beaurepaire all the same.I can have the thing mended there, as well as here.""You will go to bed," said the old man, quietly; "that is where YOU'LL go.""I'll go to blazes sooner," yelled the young one.
The old man made a signal to his myrmidons, whom Marthe's cries had brought around, and four stout fellows took hold of Edouard by the legs and the left shoulder and carried him up-stairs raging and kicking; and deposited him on a bed.
Presently he began to feel faint, and so more reasonable.They cut his coat off, and put him in a loose wrapper, and after considerable delay the surgeon came, and set his arm skilfully, and behold this ardent spirit caged.He chafed and fretted sadly.Fortitude was not his forte.
