Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/44

 as a sensible woman could wish, crushed his co-heir Massin by: “I told you so!”

As double-dealing people always ascribe their own duplicity to others, Massin scowled at the justice of the peace, who was talking just then close to the church with the Marquis du Rouvre, one of his former clients.

“If I were only sure of it!” he said.

“You would paralyze the protection he grants to the Marquis du Rouvre, who has been arrested, and whom he is at this moment soaking with advice,” said Goupil, insinuating an idea of revenge into the clerk, “but go gently with your chief; the old man is artful, he must have some influence over your uncle, and may still prevent him from leaving all to the Church.”

“Bah! we shan’t die of it,” said Minoret-Levrault, opening his enormous snuff-box.

“You will not live by it either,” replied Goupil, causing shivers to the two women, who were quicker than their husbands to construe into privation the loss of this inheritance so often laid out in comforts. “But we will drown this little trouble in floods of champagne in celebrating Désiré’s return, eh, gros père?” he added, tapping the giant’s stomach and thus inviting himself for fear of being forgotten.

Before proceeding any further, perhaps exact people will like to find here beforehand some kind of a titular inventory, rather necessary moreover, to learn the degrees of relationship which bound