“But your promise to me, Bigot! Will you keep it, or do worse?” asked she, impatiently.
“Keep it or do worse! What mean you, Angélique?” He looked up in genuine surprise. This was not the usual tone of women towards him.
“I mean that nothing will be better for François Bigot than to keep his promise, nor worse than to break it, to Angélique des Meloises!” replied she, with a stamp of her foot, as was her manner when excited.
She thought it safe to use an implied threat, which at any rate might reach the thought that lay under his heart like a centipede under a stone which some chance foot turns over.
But Bigot minded not the implied threat. He was immovable in the direction she wished him to move. He understood her allusion, but would not appear to understand it, lest worse than she meant should come of it.
“Forgive me, Angélique!” said he, with a sudden change from frigidity to fondness. “I am not unmindful of my promises; there is nothing better to myself than to keep them, nothing worse than to break them. Beaumanoir is now without reproach, and you can visit it without fear of aught but the ghosts in the gallery.”
Angélique feared no ghosts, but she did fear that the Intendant's words implied a suggestion of one which might haunt it for the future, if there were any truth in tales.
“How can you warrant that, Bigot?” asked she dubiously.
“Because Pierre Philibert and La Corne St. Luc have been with the King's warrant and searched the château from crypt to attic, without finding a trace of your rival.”
“What, Chevalier, searched the Château of the Intendant?”