text of discussing the verdict
Brunet had just handed in, was talking to Rigou of quite other 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."

"I don't see where I am to get the four thousand francs I save honestly
and invest every year, after you have cut up and sold Les Aigues," said
Sibilet, shortly. "Monsieur Gaubertin has made me many fine promises;
but the crisis is coming on; there will be fighting, surely. Promising
before victory and keeping a promise after it are two very different
things."

"I will talk to him about it," replied Rigou, imperturbably. "Meantime
this is what I should say to you if I were in his place: 'For the last
five years you have taken Monsieur Rigou four thousand francs a year,
and that worthy man gives you seven and a half per cent; which makes
your property in his hands at this moment over twenty-seven thousand
francs, as you have not drawn the interest. But t