The two others protested:
"What do you know about it?"
"One always loves the wife of one's best friend." The office boy's psychology was pessimistic.
"For the time being he has set aside the petition," Vitrolle concluded.
"It will not come up again," said the little man. "What do you bet?" cried Dauras and Lestaque in chorus.
And they made bets on the Derize separation, as if it were a horse race. Malaunay alone bet the husband would win.
So the inevitable chorus, with its laughter, accompanied the tragedy of three people, a tragedy which these men of law were about to record with the aid of a set formula and with the usual professional indifference.
II
THE FIRST JUDGES
The Molay-Norrois lived on the Quai de la République on the first floor of a spacious apartment, whose eight windows looked out on the Isère. Because of the rapidity of the current and the continual variation of volume, the water of this river, flowing from the glaciers of the great Aiguille Rousse, sometimes shallow and sometimes overflowing, is not clear, but is undoubtedly fresh and cold. Above the bridge is a narrow section of the right bank, backed by the ramps of Mont Rachais and dominated by the fortress and the Monastery of Sainte-Marie-d'En-Haut. The mountains of Vercors on the left and the Saint-Eynard on the right complete the outline of a fairly wide horizon. One feels surrounded by plenty of space and splendid air.
This apartment formed a part of the old house that Lesdiguières prepared for his mistress, Marie Vignon, who was the wife of a silk merchant: the husband, not taking kindly to this luxury, was assassinated, and his wife, who welcomed it gladly, was married somewhat later and installed in the Constable's house. But as is the custom in Grenoble, the past has left no trace, and one would take the old house for new. This historical relic had attracted Albert Derize in former times, and so led him to meet Elizabeth Molay when she was still a child.