"I am happy to try to deserve her thanks," replied Bigot; and, not caring to talk further on the subject,--"what news in the city this afternoon, Chevalier?" asked he; "how does that affair at Belmont go off?"
"Don't know. Half the city has gone, I think. At the Church door, however, the talk among the merchants is that peace is going to be made soon. Is it so very threatening, Bigot?"
"If the King wills it, it is." Bigot spoke carelessly.
"But your own opinion, Chevalier Bigot; what think you of it?"
"Amen! amen! Quod fiat fiatur! Seigny John, the fool of Paris, could enlighten you as well as I could as to what the women at Versailles may decide to do," replied Bigot in a tone of impatience.
"I fear peace will be made. What will you do in that case, Bigot?" asked Des Meloises, not noticing Bigot's aversion to the topic.
"If the King makes it, invitus amabo! as the man said who married the shrew." Bigot laughed mockingly. "We must make the best of it, Des Meloises! and let me tell you privately, I mean to make a good thing of it for ourselves whichever way it turns."
"But what will become of the Company should the war expenditure stop?" The Chevalier was thinking of his dividend of five figures.
"Oh! you should have been here sooner, Des Meloises: you would have heard our grand settlement of the question in every contingency of peace or war."
"Be sure of one thing," continued Bigot, "the Grand Company will not, like the eels of Melun, cry out before they are skinned. What says the proverb, 'Mieux vaut engin que force' (craft beats strength)? The Grand Company must prosper as the first condition of life in New France. Perhaps a year or two of repose may not be amiss, to revictual and reinforce the Colony; and by that time we shall be ready to pick the lock of Bellona's temple again and cry Vive la guerre! Vive la Grande Compagnie! more merrily than ever!"
Bigot's far-reaching intellect forecast the course of events, which remained so much subject to his own direction after the peace of Aix la Chapelle--a peace which in America was never a peace at all, but only an armed and troubled truce between the clashing interests and rival ambitions of the French and English in the New World.
The meeting of the Board of Managers of the Grand Company broke up, and--a circumstance that rarely happened--without the customary debauch. Bigot, preoccupied with his own projects, which reached far beyond the mere interests of the Company, retired to his couch.
Cadet, Varin, and Penisault, forming an interior circle of the Friponne, had certain matters to shape for the Company's eye. The rings of corruption in the Grand Company descended, narrower and more black and precipitous, down to the bottom where Bigot sat, the Demiurgos of all.
The Chevalier des Meloises was rather proud of his sister's beauty and cleverness, and in truth a little afraid of her. They lived together harmoniously enough, so long as each allowed the other his or her own way. Both took it, and followed their own pleasures, and were not usually disagreeable to one another, except when Angelique commented on what she called his penuriousness, and he upon her extravagance, in the financial administration of the family of the Des Meloises.
The Chevalier was highly delighted to-day to be able to inform Angelique of her good fortune in becoming a partner of the Friponne and that too by grace of his Excellency the Intendant. The information filled Angelique with delight, not only because it made her independent of her brother's mismanagement of money, but it opened a door to her wildest hopes. In that gift her ambition found a potent ally to enable her to resist the appeal to her heart which she knew would be made to-night by Le Gardeur de Repentigny.
The Chevalier des Meloises had no idea of his sister's own aims. He had long nourished a foolish fancy that, if he had not obtained the hand of the wealthy and beautiful heiress of Repentigny, it was because he had not proposed. Something to-day had suggested the thought that unless he did propose soon his chances would be nil, and another might secure the prize which he had in his vain fancy set down as his own.
He hinted to Angelique to-day that he had almost resolved to marry, and that his projected alliance with the noble and wealthy house of Tilly could be easily accomplished if Angelique would only do her share, as a sister ought, in securing her brother's fortune and happiness.
"How?" asked she, looking up savagely, for she knew well at what her brother was driving.
"By your accepting Le Gardeur without more delay! All the city knows he is mad in love, and would marry you any day you choose if you wore only the hair on your head. He would ask no better fortune!"
"It is useless to advise me, Renaud!" said she, "and whether I take Le Gardeur or no it would not help your chance with Amelie! I am sorry for it, for Amelie is a prize, Renaud! but not for you at any price. Let me tell you, that desirable young lady will become the bride of Pierre Philibert, and the bride of no other man living."
"You give one cold encouragement, sister! But I am sure, if you would only marry Le Gardeur, you could easily, with your tact and cleverness, induce Amelie to let me share the Tilly fortune. There are chests full of gold in the old Manor House, and a crow could hardly fly in a day over their broad lands!"
"Perfectly useless, brother! Amelie is not like most girls. She would refuse the hand of a king for the sake of the man she loves, and she loves Pierre Philibert to his finger-ends. She has married him in her heart a thousand times. I hate paragons of women, and would scorn to be one, but I tell you, brother, Amelie is a paragon of a girl, without knowing it!"
"Hum, I never tried my hand on a paragon: I should like to do so," replied he, with a smile of decided confidence in his powers. "I fancy they are just like other women when you can catch them with their armor off."
