“The order of Saint-Michel which in former days men committed follies to obtain,” he said, “has now, Monsieur le vicomte, gone the way of other privileges! It is given only to doctors and poor artists. The kings have done well to join it to that of Saint-Lazare who was, I believe, a poor devil recalled to life by a miracle. From this point of view the order of Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare may be, for many of us, symbolic.”
After this reply, at once sarcastic and dignified, silence reigned, which, as no one seemed inclined to break it, was becoming awkward, when there was a rap at the door.
“There is our dear abbe,” said the old lady, who rose, leaving Ursula alone, and advancing to meet the Abbe Chaperon,—an honor she had not paid to the doctor and his niece.
The old man smiled to himself as he looked from his goddaughter to Savinien. To show offence or to complain of Madame de Portenduere’s manners was a rock on which a man of small mind might have struck, but Minoret was too accomplished in the ways of the world not to avoid it. He began to talk to the viscount of the danger Charles X. was then running by confiding the affairs of the nation to the Prince de Polignac. When sufficient time had been spent on the subject to avoid all appearance of revenging himself by so doing, he handed the old lady, in an easy, jesting way, a packet of legal papers and receipted bills, together with the account of his notary.
“Has my son verified them?” she said, giving Savinien a look, to which he replied by bending his head. “Well, then the rest is my notary’s business,” she added, pushing away the papers and treating the affair with the disdain she wished to show for money.
To abase wealth was, according to Madame de Portenduere’s ideas, to elevate the nobility and rob the bourgeoisie of their importance.
A few moments later Goupil came from his employer, Dionis, to ask for the accounts of the transaction between the doctor and Savinien.
“Why do you want them?” said the old lady.
“To put the matter in legal form; there have been no cash payments.”
Ursula and Savinien, who both for the first time exchanged a glance with offensive personage, were conscious of a sensation like that of touching a toad, aggravated by a dark presentiment of evil. They both had the same indefinable and confused vision into the future, which has no name in any language, but which is capable of explanation as the action of the inward being of which the mysterious Swedenborgian had spoken to Doctor Minoret. The certainty that the venomous Goupil would in some way be fatal to them made Ursula tremble; but she controlled herself, conscious of unspeakable pleasure in seeing that Savinien shared her emotion.