Every movement betrayed intelligence;
born with grace and charm, like nearly all the children of love, the
noble blood of his real father came out in him.
"Don't you know, Max," cried the son of a former surgeon-major named
Goddet--now the best doctor in the town--from the other end of the
table, "that Madame Hochon's goddaughter is the sister of Rouget? If
she is coming here with her son, no doubt she means to make sure of
getting the property when he dies, and then--good-by to your harvest!"
Max frowned. Then, with a look which ran from one face to another all
round the table, he watched the effect of this announcement on the
minds of those present, and again replied,--
"What's that to me?"
"But," said Francois, "I should think that if old Rouget revoked his
will,--in case he has made one in favor of the Rabouilleuse--"
Here Max cut short his henchman's speech. "I've stopped the mouths of
people who have dared to meddle with you, my dear Francois," he said;
"and this is the way you pay your debts? You use a contemptuous
nickname in speaking of a woman to whom I am known to be attached."
Max had never before said as much as this about his relations with the
person to whom Francois had just applied a name under which she was
known at Issoudun. The late prisoner at Cabrera--the major of the
grenadiers of the Guard--knew enough of what honor was to judge
rightly as to the causes of the disesteem in which society held him.
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