“Nothing could have brought you here but your own interests,” she said, in a bitter tone.
“Our interests,” said the little man coldly, “for we have two children.—Your Uncle Silas Piedefer is dead, at New York, where, after having made and lost several fortunes in various parts of the world, he has finally left some seven or eight hundred thousand francs—they say twelve—but there is stock-in-trade to be sold. I am the chief in our common interests, and act for you.”
“Oh!” cried Dinah, “in everything that relates to business, I trust no one but Monsieur de Clagny. He knows the law, come to terms with him; what he does, will be done right.”
“I have no occasion for Monsieur de Clagny,” answered Monsieur de la Baudraye, “to take my children from you—”
“Your children!” exclaimed Dinah. “Your children, to whom you have not sent a sou! Your children!” She burst into a loud shout of laughter; but Monsieur de la Baudraye’s unmoved coolness threw ice on the explosion.
“Your mother has just brought them to show me,” he went on. “They are charming boys. I do not intend to part from them. I shall take them to our house at Anzy, if it were only to save them from seeing their mother disguised like a—”
“Silence!” said Madame de la Baudraye imperatively. “What do you want of me that brought you here?”
“A power of attorney to receive our Uncle Silas’ property.”
Dinah took a pen, wrote two lines to Monsieur de Clagny, and desired her husband to call again in the afternoon.
At five o’clock, Monsieur de Clagny—who had been promoted to the post of Attorney-General—enlightened Madame de la Baudraye as to her position; still, he undertook to arrange everything by a bargain with the old fellow, whose visit had been prompted by avarice alone. Monsieur de la Baudraye, to whom his wife’s power of attorney was indispensable to enable him to deal with the business as he wished, purchased it by certain concessions. In the first place, he undertook to allow her ten thousand francs a year so long as she found it convenient—so the document was worded—to reside in Paris; the children, each on attaining the age of six, were to be placed in Monsieur de la Baudraye’s keeping. Finally, the lawyer extracted the payment of the allowance in advance.