Appeal to the Seigneurie, indeed! It was well to know of such a project in order to circumvent it. Clovis had been awkward and unskilful; and he, the abbé, must assume henceforth more openly the command of operations. Inopportune stiff necks are productive of no end of worry. Why could not the silly zany have done as he was bid, have accepted every suggestion, leaving further action to the others? The all-important object was to secure a proper will, and that point gained, both Pharamond and Algaé were well aware of what the next step would have to be. Clovis, the shilly-shally, must henceforth be excluded from a hand in the management of affairs. The lucky fellow should reap his share of profit by and by without the sweat of labour. His abortive interview with his wife had produced one good result. He was more than ever exasperated against her, and swore, with needless oaths, that he would never look on her or speak to her again.
"In that he must please himself," Pharamond remarked with indifference; "but he must take up his pen and write. If he would cease fretting and fidgeting, and sit down, his obliging brother would dictate, and the epistle should be of the shortest. Would mademoiselle kindly listen and suggest, since for her there were no secrets?"
The letter placed an hour later in the hand of Gabrielle ran thus:--
"Madame,--Your instructions shall be obeyed. I have sent to Blois for a notary.
"Your affectionate husband,
"Clovis."
CHAPTER XXI.
[THE SPIDERS SPIN.]
How provoking and how unfair to be called upon to drag out the years of our earthly pilgrimage during so stormy a period as this one! With unexpected bombshells exploding at one's feet, what was the use of sketching elaborate schemes which accident would most likely shiver? The abbé had already been obliged to change his tactics several times in consequence of untoward circumstances, and now from a clearing heaven there rained down missiles whose unexpected proximity sharpened his ire. "Why was I born so late?" he asked himself with muttered curses. "Under Louis XV., le Bien-Aimé, everybody did what they liked, provided that his majesty smiled. And if his own fancy was not thwarted, that monarch must have been much addicted to smiling, for he found the world a pleasant place. And now, just a few years later, there seemed to be not such a thing as a smile left anywhere. They had been so lavishly showered by the bien-aimé and his lotus-eating coterie that the stock was completely exhausted, and humanity had to put up with execrations as a substitute."
Each time that a courier arrived with intelligence of what was passing in the capital, the male occupants of Lorge shuddered, guessing that the news was bad. Bad, forsooth! The ball set a rolling was tearing down the hillside with such velocity that the sight thereof took away the breath.