In this more endurable mood he flung away his cigar and went to find his mother. She kept the reins of the house firmly in her own grasp, and had just been looking into the great presses with old Nanon to make sure that no moth was fretting the linen.
“Ah, Léon,” she said, “I wanted to see you. The wood is getting low. And Nanon thinks it would not be a bad plan to get a few Cochins for the poultry-yard. What do you say?”
Her son stood reflecting.
“I don’t believe that you much like Cochins? Still, they are useful, and we need not have too many.”
“Clumsy creatures. But if Nanon has set her old heart on them—Just as you think best, mother; I can’t give my mind to it to-day; other things are too worrying.”
“Has Pichot been making difficulties about his rent! Sometimes I think that if you could get a good intendant, and not an incapable like Monsieur Georges, you might be spared many annoyances.”
Léon flung himself into a chair with a groan, and stretched his legs.
“I can do with them, but this—this is shameful! What do you say to a rascally relation of Monsieur de Cadanet writing to blackmail me about a letter of his which he avows I took?”
He spoke chokingly. It was difficult to put it into words. Mme. de Beaudrillart smiled.
“A little startling, certainly! But in these days it appears one must be prepared for anything. Does he pretend that the letter was worth anything to you?”