IV
Downstairs in Louise Adet's kitchen, Martin-Roget seized his colleague by the arm.
"Sit down a moment, citizen," he said persuasively, "and tell me what you think of it all."
Chauvelin sat down at the other's invitation. All his movements were slow, deliberate, perfectly calm.
"I think," he said drily, "as far as your marriage with the wench is concerned, that you are beaten, my friend."
"Tshaw!" The exclamation, raucous and surcharged with hate came from Louise Adet. She, too, like Pierre—more so than Pierre mayhap—had cause to hate the Kernogans. She, too, like Pierre had lived the last three days in the full enjoyment of the thought that Fate and Chance were about to level things at last between herself and those detested aristos. Silent and sullen she was shuffling about in the room, among her pots and pans, but she kept an eye upon her brother's movements and an ear on what he said. Men were apt to lose grit where a pretty wench was concerned. It takes a woman's rancour and a woman's determination to carry a scheme of vengeance against another to a successful end.
Martin-Roget rejoined more calmly:
"I knew that she would still be obstinate," he said. "If I forced her into a marriage, which I have the right to do, she might take her own life and make me look a fool. So I don't want to do that. I believe in the persuasiveness of the Rat Mort to-night," he added with a cynical laugh, "and if that fails.... Well! I was never really in love with the fair Yvonne, and now she has even ceased to be desirable.... If the Rat Mort fails to act on her sensibilities as I would wish, I can easily console myself by following Carrier's herd to Paris. Louise shall come with me—eh, little sister?—and we'll give ourselves the satisfaction of seeing M. le duc de Kernogan and his exquisite daughter stand in the felon's dock—tried for malpractices and for evil living. We'll see them branded as convicts and packed off like so much cattle to Cayenne. That will be a sight," he concluded with a deep sigh of satisfaction, "which will bring rest to my soul."
He paused: his face looked sullen and evil under the domination of that passion which tortured him.
Louise Adet had shuffled up close to her brother. In one hand she held the wooden spoon wherewith she had been stirring the soup: with the other she brushed away the dark, lank hair which hung in strands over her high, pale forehead. In appearance she was a woman immeasurably older than her years. Her face had the colour of yellow parchment, her skin was stretched tightly over her high cheekbones—her lips were colourless and her eyes large, wide-open, were pale in hue and circled with red. Just now a deep frown of puzzlement between her brows added a sinister expression to her cadaverous face: