LITMIR.BIZ

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belongs to you; but business is business, you know, and we had better get things settled at once. Your uncle’s savings amounted to eighty-five thousand francs. I have therefore put down forty-two thousand five hundred to your credit. See!”

      She showed him the figures on the sheet of paper.

      “It is unfortunately not so easy to value the shop, plant, stockin-trade, and goodwill. I have only been able to put down approximate amounts, but I don’t think I have underestimated anything. Well, the total valuation which I have made comes to fifteen thousand three hundred and ten francs; your half of which is seven thousand six hundred and fifty-five francs, so that your share amounts, in all, to fifty thousand one hundred and fifty-five francs. Please verify it for yourself, will you?”

      She had called out the figures in a clear, distinct voice, and she now handed the paper to Florent, who was obliged to take it.

      “But the old man’s business was certainly never worth fifteen thousand francs!” cried Quenu. “Why, I wouldn’t have given ten thousand for it!”

      He had ended by getting quite angry with his wife. Really, it was absurd to carry honesty to such a point as that! Had Florent said one word about the business? No, indeed, he had declared that he didn’t wish for anything.

      “The business was worth fifteen thousand three hundred and ten francs,” Lisa reasserted, calmly. “You will agree with me, my dear Florent, that it is quite unnecessary to bring a lawyer into our affairs. It is for us to arrange the division between ourselves, since you have now turned up again. I naturally thought of this as soon as you arrived; and, while you were in bed with the fever, I did my best to draw up this little inventory. It contains, as you see, a fairly complete statement of everything. I have been through our old books, and have called up my memory to help me. Read it aloud, and I will give you any additional information you may want.”

      Florent ended by smiling. He was touched by this easy and, as it were, natural display of probity. Placing the sheet of figures on the young woman’s knee, he took hold of her hand and said, “I am very glad, my dear Lisa, to hear that you are prosperous, but I will not take your money. The heritage belongs to you and my brother, who took care of my uncle up to the last. I don’t require anything, and I don’t intend to hamper you in carrying on your business.”

      Lisa insisted, and even showed some vexation, while Quenu gnawed his thumbs in silence to restrain himself.

      “Ah!” resumed Florent with a laugh, “if Uncle Gradelle could hear you, I think he’d come back and take the money away again. I was never a favourite of his, you know.”

      “Well, no,” muttered Quenu, no longer able to keep still, “he certainly wasn’t over fond of you.”

      Lisa, however, still pressed the matter. She did not like to have money in her secretaire that did not belong to her; it would worry her, said she; the thought of it would disturb her peace. Thereupon Florent, still in a joking way, proposed to invest his share in the business. Moreover, said he, he did not intend to refuse their help; he would, no doubt, be unable to find employment all at once; and then, too, he would need a complete outfit, for he was scarcely presentable.

      “Of course,” cried Quenu, “you will board and lodge with us, and we will buy you all that you want. That’s understood. You know very well that we are not likely to leave you in the streets, I hope!”

      He was quite moved now, and even felt a trifle ashamed of the alarm he had experienced at the thought of having to hand over a large amount of money all at once. He began to joke, and told his brother that he would undertake to fatten him. Florent gently shook his hand; while Lisa folded up the sheet of figures and put it away in a drawer of the secretaire.

      “You are wrong,” she said by way of conclusion. “I have done what I was bound to do. Now it shall be as you wish. But, for my part, I should never have had a moment’s peace if I had not put things before you. Bad thoughts would quite upset me.”

      They then began to speak of another matter. It would be necessary to give some reason for Florent’s presence, and at the same time avoid exciting the suspicion of the police. He told them that in order to return to France he had availed himself of the papers of a poor fellow who had died in his arms at Surinam from yellow fever. By a singular coincidence this young fellow’s Christian name was Florent.

      Florent Laquerriere, to give him his name in full, had left but one relation in Paris, a female cousin, and had been informed of her death while in America. Nothing could therefore be easier than for Quenu’s half brother to pass himself off as the man who had died at Surinam. Lisa offered to take upon herself the part of the female cousin. They then agreed to relate that their cousin Florent had returned from abroad, where he had failed in his attempts to make a fortune, and that they, the Quenu-Gradelles, as they were called in the neighbourhood, had received him into their house until he could find suitable employment. When this was all settled, Quenu insisted upon his brother making a thorough inspection of the rooms, and would not spare him the examination of a single stool. Whilst they were in the bare looking chamber containing nothing but chairs, Lisa pushed open a door, and showing Florent a small dressing room, told him that the shop girl should sleep in it, so that he could retain the bedroom on the fifth floor.

      In the evening Florent was arrayed in new clothes from head to foot. He had insisted upon again having a black coat and black trousers, much against the advice of Quenu, upon whom black had a depressing effect. No further attempts were made to conceal his presence in the house, and Lisa told the story which had been planned to everyone who cared to hear it. Henceforth Florent spent almost all his time on the premises, lingering on a chair in the kitchen or leaning against the marble-work in the shop. At meal times Quenu plied him with food, and evinced considerable vexation when he proved such a small eater and left half the contents of his liberally filled plate untouched. Lisa had resumed her old life, evincing a kindly tolerance of her brother-in-law’s presence, even in the morning, when he somewhat interfered with the work. Then she would momentarily forget him, and on suddenly perceiving his black form in front of her give a slight start of surprise, followed, however, by one of her sweet smiles, lest he might feel at all hurt. This skinny man’s disinterestedness had impressed her, and she regarded him with a feeling akin to respect, mingled with vague fear. Florent had for his part only felt that there was great affection around him.

      When bedtime came he went upstairs, a little wearied by his lazy day, with the two young men whom Quenu employed as assistants, and who slept in attics adjoining his own. Leon, the apprentice, was barely fifteen years of age. He was a slight, gentle looking lad, addicted to stealing stray slices of ham and bits of sausages. These he would conceal under his pillow, eating them during the night without any bread. Several times at about one o’clock in the morning Florent almost fancied that Leon was giving a supper-party; for he heard low whispering followed by a sound of munching jaws and rustling paper. And then a rippling girlish laugh would break faintly on the deep silence of the sleeping house like the soft trilling of a flageolet.

      The other assistant, Auguste Landois, came from Troyes. Bloated with unhealthy fat, he had too large a head, and was already bald, although only twenty-eight years of age. As he went upstairs with Florent on the first evening, he told him his story in a confused, garrulous way. He had at first come to Paris merely for the purpose of perfecting himself in the business, intending to return to Troyes, where his cousin, Augustine Landois, was waiting for him, and there setting up for himself as a pork butcher. He and she had had the game godfather and bore virtually the same Christian name. However, he had grown ambitious; and now hoped to establish himself in business in Paris by the aid of the money left him by his mother, which he had deposited with a notary before leaving Champagne.

      Auguste had got so far in his narrative when the fifth floor was reached; however, he still detained Florent, in order to sound the praises of Madame Quenu, who had consented to send for Augustine Landois to replace an assistant who had turned out badly. He himself was now thoroughly acquainted with his part of the business, and his cousin was perfecting herself in shop management. In a year or eighteen months they would be married, and then they would set up on their own account in some populous corner of Paris, at Plaisance most likely. They were in no great

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