‘I am not such a gull as you.’
‘How very beautiful your wife must have been!’ said Philip, with gruff amazement overpowering his consideration.
‘Much you know about it,’ returned Berenger, turning his face away.
There was a long silence, first broken by Philip, asking more cautiously, ‘And what did you say to him?’
‘I said whatever could show it was most impossible. Even I said the brother’s handwriting was too plain on my face for me to offer myself to the sister. But it seems all that is to be passed over as an unlucky mistake. I wish I could guess what the old fellow is aiming at.’
‘I am sure the lady looked at you as if she loved you.’
‘Simpleton! She looked to see how she could beguile me. Love! They do nothing for love here, you foolish boy, save par amour. If she loved me, her father was the last person she would have sent me. No, no; ‘tis a new stratagem, if I could only seen my way into it. Perhaps Sir Francis will when he can spend an hour on me.’
Though full of occupation, Sir Francis never failed daily to look in upon his convalescent guest, and when he heard of the Chevalier’s interview, he took care that Berenger should have full time to consult him; and, of course, he inquired a good deal more into the particulars of the proposal than Philip had done. When he learnt that the Chevalier had offered all the very considerable riches and lands that Diane enjoyed in right of her late husband as an equivalent for Berenger’s resignation of all claims upon the Nid-de-Merle property, he noted it on his tables, and desired to know what these claims might be. ‘I cannot tell,’ said Berenger. ‘You may remember, sir, the parchments with our contract of marriage had been taken away from Chateau Leurre, and I have never seen them.’
‘Then,’ said the Ambassador, ‘you may hold it as certain that those parchments give you some advantage which he hears, since he is willing to purchase it at so heavy a price. Otherwise he himself would be the natural heir of those lands.’
‘After my child,’ said Berenger, hastily.