Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/298

 “Well then,” said Goupil, darting a viperous look at her, “if I choose, Massin will have all that for two hundred thousand francs.”

“Leave us, wife,” then said the giant, taking Zélie’s arm and sending her back, “I am settling with him.—We have been so busy,” resumed Minoret returning to Goupil, “that we have not been able to think of you; but I count upon your friendship to procure us Le Rouvre.”

“An old marquisate,” said Goupil, slily, “and which in your hands would soon be worth fifty thousand francs a year, more than two millions at the present price of landed estate.”

“And our deputy would then marry a fieldmarshal’s daughter, or the heiress of some old family who would advance him in the magistracy of Paris,” said the postmaster, opening his big snuff-box and offering Goupil a pinch.

“Well then, are we playing fair?” cried Goupil, flicking his fingers.

Minoret squeezed Goupil’s hands and replied:

“On my word of honor!”

Happily for Minoret, the head clerk believed, like all crafty people, that his marriage with Ursule was an excuse for making up to him since he had set Massin against them.

“It is not he,” he said to himself, “who thought of this humbug, I recognize my Zélie, she has dictated his rôle. Bah! I can let Massin go. Before three years are over I shall be deputy for Sens,” he thought.