stopped, he reflected.
“The deuce, I can’t think of anybody…. It’s not my father, after what you told me?…”
Renée started as though she had been scalded, and in a hollow voice:
“No, you know he no longer comes to me. I wouldn’t allow it, it would be too degrading.”
“Then who is it?”
And he tightened his grasp on her wrists. The poor woman struggled a few moments longer.
“Oh, Maxime, if you knew!… And yet I can’t tell you….”
Then, conquered, crushed, looking up with affright at the light in the window:
“It’s M. de Saffré,” she stammered, in a whisper.
Maxime, who had taken delight in his cruel pastime, turned extremely pale before the avowal which he had evoked with so much persistence. He was vexed at the unexpected pain this man’s name caused him. He violently threw back Renée’s wrists, came up to her, and said to her, full in her face, between his clenched teeth:
“Look here, if you want to know, you’re a…!”
He said the word. And he was going away when she ran to him, sobbing, and took him in her arms, murmured words of love, appeals for forgiveness, swore to him that she still adored him, and that she would explain everything the next day. But he disengaged himself, and banging the door of the conservatory, replied:
“No, no, no! it’s over, I’ve had quite enough of it.”
She remained crushed. She watched him crossing the garden. The trees of the hothouse seemed to be revolving around her. Then she slowly dragged her bare feet over the gravel of the pathways, climbed up the steps, her skin mottled with cold, she still more tragical in the disorder of her lace. Upstairs she said, in reply to her husband’s questions, who was waiting for her, that she thought she would have been able to remember where a little memorandum-book might have got to that had been lost since the morning. And when she was in bed, she suddenly felt an infinite despair when she reflected that she ought to have told Maxime that his father had come in with her and had followed her into her room in order to discuss some question of money with her.
It was on the next day that Saccard resolved to bring to a head the Charonne business. His wife belonged to him; he had just felt her soft and inert in his hands, like a yielding thing. On the other hand the direction of the Boulevard du Prince-Eugène was about to be settled, and it was necessary that Renée should be despoiled before the news got about of the approaching expropriation. Saccard put an artist’s love of his work into this piece of business; he watched his plan ripen with devotion, and set his traps with the refinement of a sportsman who takes a special pride in catching his game skilfully. In his case it was simply the self-satisfaction of an expert gamester, of a man who derives a peculiar enjoyment from ill-gotten gains; he wanted to buy the ground for an old song, and was quite ready then to give his wife a hundred thousand francs’ worth of jewellery in the exaltation of his triumph. The simplest operations became complicated so soon as he touched them, and turned into sombre tragedies: he became impassioned, he would have beaten his father for a five-franc piece. And afterwards he scattered his gold right royally.
But before obtaining from Renée the transfer of her share of the property, he had the foresight to go and sound Larsonneau as to the blackmailing intentions of which he suspected him. His intuition saved him in this instance. The expropriation-agent had thought, on his side, that the fruit was now ripe and waiting to be gathered. When Saccard walked into the office in the Rue de Rivoli, he found his associate overcome, giving signs of the most violent despair.
“Ah, my friend,” murmured the latter, taking hold of Saccard’s hands, “we are lost…. I was just coming round to you to discuss the best way out of this terrible scrape….”
While he wrung his hands, and endeavoured to force out a sob, Saccard noticed that he had been engaged in signing letters as he came in, and that the signatures were admirably firm. He looked at him calmly, and then said:
“Pooh, what has happened, then?”
But the other did not at once reply; he threw himself into his armchair in front of his writing-table, and there, with his elbows on his blotting-book, and his forehead between his hands, furiously shook his head. At last, in a hollow voice:
“They have stolen the ledger, I tell you….”
And he told how one of his clerks, a rogue fit for the galleys, had abstracted a large number of books, among which was the famous ledger. The worst of it was that the thief had realized to what use he could put that book, and would only sell it back again for a hundred thousand francs.
Saccard reflected. The story struck him as altogether too clumsy. Obviously Larsonneau did not at heart much care whether he believed it or not. He simply sought a pretext for giving him to understand that he wanted a hundred thousand francs out of the Charonne affair; and in fact that on this condition he would restore the compromising papers in his possession. The bargain seemed too dear to Saccard. He would not have minded allowing his ex-colleague a share; but this ambush prepared for him, this vain attempt to dupe him, irritated him. On the other hand he was not quite easy in his mind; he knew his man, and he knew him to be quite capable of carrying the documents to his brother the minister, who would certainly have paid him to prevent any scandal.
“The devil!” he muttered, sitting down, in his turn, “that’s an ugly business…. And could I see the rogue in question?”
“I will send for him,” said Larsonneau. “He lives close by, in the Rue Jean-Lantier.”
Ten minutes had not elapsed when a short young man, squint-eyed, pale-haired, with a face covered with red patches, entered softly, taking care that the door should make no noise. He was dressed in a badly-cut black frockcoat, too large for him and horribly threadbare. He stood at a respectful distance, watching Saccard out of the corner of his eye, calmly. Larsonneau, addressing him as Baptistin, submitted him to a series of questions to which he replied in monosyllables without being in the least disconcerted; and he received with complete indifference the epithets of thief, swindler, and scoundrel, with which his employer thought fit to accompany each of his questions.
Saccard admired the wretch’s coolness. At one moment the expropriation-agent flew from his chair as though to strike him; and he contented himself with taking a step backwards, squinting with greater humility.
“That will do, leave him alone,” said the financier…. “So, monsieur, you ask a hundred thousand francs to give up those papers?”
“Yes, a hundred thousand francs,” replied the young man. And he went away. Larsonneau seemed unable to calm himself.
“Ugh! what a reptile!” he stuttered. “Did you see his deceitful looks?… Those fellows have a timid look, but they’d murder a man for twenty francs.”
But Saccard interrupted him and said:
“Bah! he’s nothing to be afraid of. I think we shall be able to make terms with him…. I came to see you about a much more distressing matter…. You were right to distrust my wife, my dear friend. Try and realize that she wants to sell her share in the property to M. Haffner. She needs money, she says. Her friend Suzanne must have egged her on.”
The other abruptly ceased his lamentations; he listened, rather pale, adjusting his stand-up collar, which
