“Are you going to your master with the object of forgetting your troubles?”
“No! Rather to keep watch over him. Since I have been in the house I have spoken with his father, and learnt several things. M. Baradier is informed that his son has received communications from the General de Trémont, and now the famous formulæ can only be obtained from Marcel. M. Baradier, I believe, would give a large sum if his son had never entered the General’s laboratory. But that is a fact which cannot be undone. The only important thing now is to defend the young man. This trust has been confided to me. M. Baradier said to me: ‘Baudoin, Marcel is my only son, and although he is not so steady as he might be, I am all the same very fond of him. I do not want him to come to any harm. As soon as you are free go down to Ars, and do not leave him.’”
“But why does this young man, who is so rich, and of whom his family is so fond, shut himself up in a quiet provincial town? Why does he not stay in Paris?”
“For several reasons. The best one is that his father considers it more prudent for him to be at Ars than in Paris. Surveillance is more easy in the country. Besides, M. Marcel, from what I have learned, has been living rather too fast, and his father has cut off his supplies; but for his uncle Graff, the young heir would have nothing whatever. Just now he is desperately bent on finding a chemical process of wool-dyeing, and, though he is rather a hare-brained fellow, as the General called him, he has an extraordinary aptitude for scientific research, so that his work will be sufficient to keep him away from all kinds of distractions.”
“He is rather a strange character.”
“The finest young man you would meet anywhere. Generous and lively in disposition, not proud in the least. Ah! he will please you, I know, when you meet him.”
“Then I am to make his acquaintance?”
“Certainly.”
“In what way?”
“Listen. As soon as I learned that I could leave Paris I rushed off to the Minister to explain what I wanted to do, and asked him, if he wished the affair to succeed, to give me permission that you should come down to Ars whenever I need you.”