“You think then that Mr. Candover would have allowed me to sign a contract which was no contract?” asked Audrey drily.
This was well put, and Laure’s sallow face changed colour a little.
“Why don’t you consult him about it?” she said quickly. “You have let yourself be guided by him throughout the business; you took the place on his advice; you furnished it at the shop he chose. He has all the documents concerning the sale, I believe?”
“Yes,” admitted Audrey, recalling, with a heightened colour and a faster beating heart, that she had indeed, at the time of her great distress, left the whole affair in the hands of the man who had made such strong professions of friendship and kindness to her and her husband.
“Then why not ask him how you stand? Why not suggest the sale to him, and see what he says? It will be, I think, this: that the business was bought in the name of Rocada, and that it belongs to the trading firm of that name, and not to any individual person. Certainly not to the woman who persistently injures the business by declaring that she is not Madame Rocada!”
Audrey was puzzled. She remained a few minutes in deep thought, and it was Mademoiselle Laure who broke the silence.
“Think this over, take the night to consider it,” she said, with a coaxing change of tone. “It would be a most unwise thing to give up in a hurry a business which you are certainly the head of at present. What do you want? You are making money, and you will presently make more. Don’t be rash. Be advised, and remember that I am ready, in the future as in the past, to take the greater part of the hard work upon my own shoulders, and to leave the ornamental and easy and pleasant part to you!”
“But it’s not pleasant,” protested Audrey, “to be always at the beck and call of a class of people I don’t like!”
“Bah! All the people are lovable when their purses are long!” retorted Laure. “Think it over; sleep upon it; and we will have another talk about this in the morning.”
Audrey agreed to this, not that there was the least prospect of her changing her mind, but because she wanted time to consider the rather gruesome prospect opened by the woman’s words.