you sending him
into the house! Find some excuse for stopping here, at least, and when
David and Lucien come out, send them round this way; they will think
they are quite alone, and I shall overhear their good-bye."

"You are a very devil," muttered Petit-Claud.

"Well, I'm blessed if a man wouldn't do anything for the thing you
promised me."

Petit-Claud walked away from the hoarding, and paced up and down in the
Place du Murier; he watched the windows of the room where the family
sat together, and thought of his own prospects to keep up his courage.
Cerizet's cleverness had given him the chance of striking the final
blow. Petit-Claud was a double-dealer of the profoundly cautious
stamp that is never caught by the bait of a present satisfaction, nor
entangled by a personal attachment, after his first initiation into the
strategy of self-seeking and the instability of the human heart. So,
from the very first, he had put little trust in Cointet. He foresaw that
his marriage negotiations might very easily be broken off, saw also that
in that case he could not accuse Cointet of bad faith, and he had
taken his measures accordingly. But since his success at the Hotel de
Bargeton, Petit-Claud's game was above board. A certain under-plot of
his was useless now, and even dangerous to a man with his political
ambitions. He had laid the foundations of his future importance in the
following manner:--

Gannerac and a few of the wealthy men of business in L'Houmeau formed
a sort of Liberal clique in constant communication (through commercial
channels) with the leaders of the Opposition. The Villele ministry,
accepted by the dying Louis XVIII., gave the signal for a change of
tactics in the Opposition camp; for, since the death of Napoleon, the
liberals had ceased to resort to the dangerous expedient of conspiracy.
They were busy organizing resistance by lawful means throughout the
provinces, and aiming at securing control of the great bulk of electors
by convincing the masses. Petit-Claud, a rabid Liberal, and a man of
L'Houmeau, was the instigator, the secret counselor, and the very life
of this movement in the lower town, which groaned under the tyranny of
the aristocrats at the upper end. He was the first to see the danger
of leaving the whole press of the department in the control of the
Cointets; the Opposition must have its organ; it would not do to be
behind other cities.

"If each one of us gives Gannerac a bill for f