“So much the better for him.”
“You have indirectly caused your son’s misfortunes by refusing to give him a profession; beware for the future,” said the abbe sternly. “Am I to tell Doctor Minoret that you are coming?”
“Why cannot he come to me if he knows I want him?” she replied.
“Ah, madame, if you go to him you will pay him three per cent; if he comes to you you will pay him five,” said the abbe, inventing this reason to influence the old lady. “And if you are forced to sell your farm by Dionis the notary, or by Massin the clerk (who would refuse to lend you the money, knowing it was more their interest to buy), you would lose half its value. I have not the slightest influence on the Dionis, Massins, or Levraults, or any of those rich men who covet your farm and know that your son is in prison.”
“They know it! oh, do they know it?” she exclaimed, throwing up her arms. “There! my poor abbe, you have let your coffee get cold! Tiennette, Tiennette!”
Tiennette, an old Breton servant sixty years of age, wearing a short gown and a Breton cap, came quickly in and took the abbe’s coffee to warm it.
“Let be, Monsieur le recteur,” she said, seeing that the abbe meant to drink it, “I’ll just put it into the bain-marie, it won’t spoil it.”
“Well,” said the abbe to Madame de Portenduere in his most insinuating voice, “I shall go and tell the doctor of your visit, and you will come—”
The old mother did not yield till after an hour’s discussion, during which the abbe was forced to repeat his arguments at least ten times. And even then the proud Kergarouet was not vanquished until he used the words, “Savinien would go.”
“It is better that I should go than he,” she said.