“Well, I have said that it should be done, and I will be as good as my word. No one has ever been able to say that I was worse. This sum absolutely clears Poissy!”
“Absolutely.”
“And there is but one debtor?”
“But one.”
“Excuse me, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, but I am a man of business. Some sort of bond, I imagine, exists? I should be glad to have a sight of it.”
To M. Bourget’s stupefaction, Léon sprang to his feet in a rage.
“Monsieur, you doubt my word! You insult me! Do you suppose that I will submit to dictation from any man, least of all from you! I have told you the position of affairs, and if you do not choose to believe me, let there be an end of everything.”
“Softly, softly,” said M. Bourget—to tell the truth, as much alarmed as amazed—“it appears to me that if I am going to pay, the suggestion was not unreasonable. Since, however, it offends you so mortally, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, we will say no more about it.” He added, with a great sigh, “I suppose you fine gentlemen do not carry out your affairs so methodically as we. The wonder to me is not that you so often come to grief as that you ever escape shipwreck. To object to the existence of a bond! However, as you will, as you will!”
Léon did not at once recover his usual good temper. He looked pale and sat staring moodily at the ground. But, strange to say, what in one of his own class would have excited M. Bourget’s anger and suspicion, here rather afforded him satisfaction than otherwise. The De Beaudrillarts were of another race, these outbursts of pride belonged to their history, their traditions, and, though he would have died sooner than betray it, M. Bourget’s feeling towards them comprised something of the abject loyalty with which the working bee regards his queen. He promised himself that Nathalie’s money should be as safely secured as the law permitted, but he, to whom the outgoing of a piece of ten sous was a matter of consideration, by some curious contradiction gloried in the carelessness which would disperse a fortune with as little heed as if money were to be had for the picking up. Glancing at Léon he said, tentatively:
“One may not even ask the name of the creditor?”