d
you should wish to lose a friend like me."

"Well, yes, there is," replied la Peyrade, with the air of a man who
makes up his mind to speak out. "I don't like ingratitude."

"Nor I either; I don't like it," said Thuillier, hotly; "and if you
accuse me of so base an action, I summon you to explain yourself. We
must get out of these hints and innuendoes. What do you complain of?
What have you against a man whom only a few days ago you called your
friend?"

"Nothing and everything," replied la Peyrade. "You and your sister
are much too clever to break openly with a man who, at the risk of his
reputation, has put a million in your hands. But I am not so simple that
I don't know how to detect changes. There are people about you who have
set themselves, in an underhand way, to destroy me; and Brigitte has
only one thought, and that is, how to find a decent way of not keeping
her promises. Men like me don't wait till their claims are openly
protested, and I certainly do not intend to impose myself on any family;
still, I was far, I acknowledge, from expecting such treatment."

"Come, come," said Thuillier, kindly, seeing in the barrister's eye the
glint of a tear of which he was completely the dupe, "I don't know what
Brigitte may have been doing to you, but one thing is very certain: I
have never ceased to be your most devoted friend."

"No," said la Peyrade, "since that mishap about the cross I am only
good, as the saying is, to throw to the dogs. How could I have struggled
against secret influences? Possibly it is that pamphlet, about which you
have talked a great deal too much, that has hindered your appointment.
The ministers are so stupid! They would rather wait and have their hand
forced by the fame of the publication than do the thing with a good
grace as the reward of your services. But these are political mysteries
which would never enter your sister's mind."

"The devil!" cried Thuillier. "I think I've got a pretty observing eye,
and yet I can't see the slightest change in Brigitte toward you."

"Oh, yes!" said la Peyrade, "your eyesight is so good that you have
never seen perpetually beside her that Madame de Godollo, whom she now
thinks she can't live without."

"Ha, ha!" said Thuillier, slyly, "so it is a little jealousy, is it, in
our mind?"

"Jealousy!" retorted la Peyrade. "I don't know if that's the right word,
but certainly your sister--whose mind is nothing above the ordinary,
and to whom I am