“Take steps. Do what is necessary. Let him know that I refuse to pay anything, and that I consider him a scoundrel.” A one-sided smile passed across M. Rodoin’s thin face. “Well, well, monsieur le baron, I don’t wonder at your anger, but—at any rate, he shall be met with an action.”
“And let him hear something strong, since the rascal won’t give me an opportunity of saying it to his own face,” said Léon, lashing himself into rage.
“We will leave the law to do that with better effect,” returned the lawyer, calmly. “Meanwhile, with your permission, I have to ask you a few questions.”
Léon rested his elbows on the table, and, sitting with his back to the light, buried his face in his hands. He might have been trying to recall the past.
“Go on, monsieur,” he said. “But remember that these events took place six years ago, and more.”
“You were in difficulties, monsieur, at the time!”
“As you know very well. Suppose we even allow that I had been abominably extravagant. Worse than you can imagine, Nathalie; but as you insisted upon assisting at this interview, you must prepare for revelations. Poissy was heavily mortgaged, and I was threatened with foreclosure. Wherever I looked, I saw nothing but disaster; and I vow it came upon me all at once, in spite of what Monsieur Georges may say of having tried to tell me. He had a way of telling which would not have affected a fly. Where was I to turn! Naturally to Monsieur de Cadanet.”
The lawyer had been noting these facts in his note-book. He looked up here.
“This was in August, 188-, I think, monsieur?”
“Precisely.”