"I, an old soldier! twenty campaigns and ten times wounded! The intimate companion and friend of all the lions of Paris! a man with his own carriage and who spends twenty thousand francs per annum! The devil! be frank with me! Do you require securities or advances? Very well, then; the house shall be furnished within a week and the lease signed in your own name to-morrow, with the payment of a whole year in advance; besides, if we come to terms, here are twenty-five to thirty louis to bind the bargain."
Drawing twenty-eight gold pieces from his pocket, he tossed them on the work-table beside the bed, saying: "I am not like you, Mamma Lacombe; I am not afraid of being robbed."
At the clinking of gold, the sick woman leaned out of her bed and cast a glance of covetousness at the glittering pieces.
In all the course of her miserable existence, she had never possessed a single gold piece, and the sight of the scattered louis before her eyes almost dazzled her. Grasping a few in her withered fingers, she held them up to the light, trying to catch the sun's rays that she might feast her hungry eyes on their sparkling beauty.
"I had to show the bait to catch the old witch," said the tempter to himself, with a contemptuous smile.
"At last, at last I have touched the glittering gold!" muttered the old woman, jingling the yellow pieces in her hand.
"Touching them is nothing; the agreeable part of it is to spend them,
Mamma Lacombe."
"And this is enough to live in comfort for four or five months," she went on, piling up the coins with childish glee.
"You and Mariette will have as much for every month of the year, if you only say so," said the tempter. "Yes, all this gold; do you hear? in pure, glittering gold!"
There was a long interval of silence; then, raising her sunken eyes to the visitor, the invalid said wistfully: "You think Mariette pretty and charming, monsieur, do you not? You are right; there is not a better creature in the world. Now, be generous toward her! This sum is nothing for a rich man like you—give it to us as a gift."