And thereupon he tendered six bank-notes.
'By-and-by!' cried Busch, pushing back the money. 'I have not finished. Madame, whom you see there, is Octavie's cousin, and these papers are hers; it is in her name that I seek payment. That poor Octavie became a cripple, and had many misfortunes before she at last died at Madame's house in frightful poverty. If Madame chose, she could tell you things——'
'Terrible things!' emphasised La Méchain in her piping voice, breaking silence at last.
Saccard, quite scared, having forgotten her, turned and saw her sitting there all of a heap, like a half-empty wineskin. Bird of prey that she was with her shady trade in worthless securities, she had always made him feel uneasy, and now he found her mixed up in this unpleasant story.
'Undoubtedly, poor creature, it is very sad,' he murmured.
'But if she is dead, I really do not see——Here, at any rate, are the six hundred francs.'
A second time Busch refused to take the sum.
'Excuse me,' he said, 'you do not know all yet; she had a child. Yes, a child who is now in his fourteenth year—a child who so resembles you that you cannot deny him.'
'A child, a child!' Saccard repeated several times, quite thunderstruck.
Then, suddenly replacing the six bank-notes in his pocket-book, recovering his self-possession and becoming quite merry, he continued: