ul for a minute, as if arranging his thoughts
so as to present them as clearly and briefly as possible.

"My first plan," he began, "depends upon your approval. What would you
say, if I proposed to you to renounce the affair altogether?"

"What!"

"Would you consent to disappear, leave France, and return to London, if
I paid you a good round sum?"

"What do you call a good round sum?"

"I will give you a hundred and fifty thousand francs."

"My respected uncle," said Raoul with a contemptuous shrug, "I am
distressed to see how little you know me! You try to deceive me, to
outwit me, which is ungenerous and foolish on your part; ungenerous,
because it fails to carry out our agreement; foolish, because as you
know well enough, my power equals yours."

"I don't understand you."

"I am sorry for it. I understand myself, and that is sufficient. Oh!
I understand you, my dear uncle. I have watched you with careful eyes,
which are not to be deceived; I see through you clearly. If you offer me
one hundred and fifty thousand francs, it is because you intend to walk
off with half a million for yourself."

"You are talking like a fool," said Clameran with virtuous indignation.

"Not at all; I only judge the future by the past. Of all the large sums
extorted from Mme. Fauvel, often against my wishes, I never received a
tenth part."

"But you know we have a reserve fund."

"All very good; but you have the keeping of it, my good uncle. It is
very nice for you, but not so funny for me. If our little plot were
to be discovered to-morrow, you would walk off with the money-box, and
leave your devoted nephew to be sent to prison."

"Ingrate!" muttered Louis, as if distressed at these undeserved
reproaches of his protege.

"You have hit on the very word I was trying to remember," cried Raoul:
"'ingrate' is the name that just suits you. But we have not time for
this nonsense. I will end the matter by proving how you have been trying
to deceive me."

"I would like to hear you do so if you can."

"Very good. In the first place, you told me that your brother only
possessed a modest competency. Now, I learn that Gaston has an income
of at least sixty thousand francs. It is useless for you to deny it; and
how much is this property worth? A hundred thousand crowns. He had four
hundred thousand francs deposited in M. Fauvel's bank. Total, seven
hundred thousand francs. And, besides all this, the broker in Oloron
has orders to b