“All this is empty talk,” he interrupted. “I don’t mean to work, for it’s not at all in my line. Still, I don’t expect to want for anything! That’s plain enough, I hope.”
Madame d’Argeles did not wince. “What do you mean to do then?” she asked, coldly. “I don’t understand you.”
He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “Are we to keep up this farce for ever?” he petulantly exclaimed. “It doesn’t take with me. You know what I mean as well as I do. Why do you talk to me about dying of starvation? What about the fortune?”
“Eh? why, my uncle’s, of course! Your brother’s, the Count de Chalusse.”
Now M. Wilkie’s visit, manner, assurance, wheedling, and contradictions were all explained. That maternal confidence which is so strong in the hearts of mothers vanished from Madame d’Argeles’s for ever. The depths of selfishness and cunning she discerned in Wilkie’s mind appalled her. She now understood why he had declared himself ready to brave public opinion--why he had proved willing to accept his share of the past ignominy. It was not his mother’s, but the Count de Chalusse’s estate that he claimed. “Ah! so you’ve heard of that,” she said, in a tone of bitter irony. And then, remembering M. Isidore Fortunat, she asked: “Some one has sold you this valuable secret. How much have you promised to pay him in case of success?”
Although Wilkie prided himself on being very clever, he did not pretend to be a diplomatist, and, indeed, he was greatly disconcerted by this question; still, recovering himself, he replied: “It doesn’t matter how I obtained the information--whether I paid for it, or whether it cost me nothing--but I know that you are a Chalusse, and that you are the heiress of the count’s property, which is valued at eight or ten millions of francs. Do you deny it?”
Madame d’Argeles sadly shook her head. “I deny nothing,” she replied, “but I am about to tell you something which will destroy all your plans and extinguish your hopes. I am resolved, understand, and my resolution is irrevocable, never to assert my rights. To receive this fortune, I should be obliged to confess that Lia d’Argeles is a Chalusse--and that is a confession which no consideration whatever will wring from me.”