matters. He had found the usurer finishing his dessert. On a square
dinner-table covered with a dazzling white cloth--for, regardless of
his wife and Annette who did the washing, Rigou exacted clean
table-linen every day--the steward noted strawberries, apricots,
peaches, figs, and almonds, all the fruits of the season in profusion,
served in white porcelain dishes on vine-leaves as daintily as at Les
Aigues.

Seeing Sibilet, Rigou told him to run the bolts of the inside
double-doors, which were added to the other doors as much to stifle
sounds as to keep out the cold air, and asked him what pressing
business brought him there in broad daylight when it was so much safer
to confer together at night.

"The Shopman talks of going to Paris to see the Keeper of the Seals;
he is capable of doing you a great deal of harm; he may ask for the
dismissal of your son-in-law, and the removal of the judges at
Ville-aux-Fayes, especially after reading the verdict just rendered in
your favor. He has turned at bay; he is shrewd, and he has an adviser
in that abbe, who is quite able to tilt with you and Gaubertin. Priests
are powerful. Monseigneur the bishop thinks a great deal of the Abbe
Brossette. Madame la comtesse talks of going herself to her cousin the
prefect, the Comte de Casteran, about Nicolas. Michaud begins to see
into our game."

"You are frightened," said Rigou, softly, casting a look on Sibilet
which suspicion made less impassive than usual, and which was
therefore terrific. "You are debating whether it would not be better
on the whole to side with the Comte de Montcornet."