“My land and my earnings are my own, and I have never lived on another man’s fortune. If you mean that the late Seigneur made a will—that canard—”
“It was no canard.” Tardif laughed hatefully. “There was a will right enough.”
“Where is it? I’ve heard that fool’s gossip before.”
“Where is it? Ask your wife; she knows. Ask your loving Tardif, he knows.”
“Where is the will, Tardif?” asked the Seigneur in a voice that, in his own ears, seemed to come from an infinite distance; to Tardif’s ears it was merely tuneless and harsh.
“In M’sieu’ Fournel’s pocket, or Madame’s. What’s the difference? The price is the same, and you keep your eyes shut and play the Seigneur, and eat and drink what they give you just the same.”
Now the Seigneur understood. His eyes went blind for a moment, and his hands twitched convulsively on the embossed address he had been rolling and unrolling. A terror, a shame, a dreadful cruelty entered into him, but he was still and numb, and his tongue was thick. He spoke heavily.
“Tell me all,” he said. “You shall be well paid.”
“I don’t want your money. I want to see you squirm. I want to see her put where she deserves. Bah! Do you think Fournel forgave you for putting his feet in his shoes, and for that case at law, for nothing? Why should he? He hated you, and you hated him. His name’s on that paper in your hand among all the rest. Do you think he eats humble pie and crawls to Madame and lets you stay here for nothing?”
The Seigneur was painfully quiet and intent, yet his brain was like some great lens, refracting and magnifying things to monstrous proportions.