"Leave it to me," replied De Pean. "I know one partner of the Company who, if I can get him in harness, will run our chariot wheels in triumph over the Golden Dog."
"And who is that?" asked Bigot eagerly.
"Le Gardeur de Repentigny!" exclaimed De Pean, with a look of exultation.
"Pshaw! he would draw upon us more readily! Why, he is bewitched with the Philiberts!" replied Bigot.
"I shall find means to break the spell long enough to answer our purpose, your Excellency!" replied De Pean. "Permit me only to take my own way with him."
"Assuredly, take your own way, De Pean! A bloody scuffle between De Repentigny and the Bourgeois would not only be a victory for the Company, but would breakup the whole party of the Honnetes Gens!"
The Intendant slapped De Pean on the shoulder and shook him by the hand. "You are more clever than I believed you to be, De Pean. You have hit on a mode of riddance which will entitle you to the best reward in the power of the Company to bestow."
"My best reward will be the fulfilment of your promise, your Excellency," answered De Pean.
"I will keep my word, De Pean. By God you shall have Angelique, with such a dowry as the Company can alone give! Or, if you do not want the girl, you shall have the dowry without the wife!"
"I shall claim both, your Excellency! But--"
"But what? Confess all your doubts, De Pean."
"Le Gardeur may claim her as his own reward!" De Pean guessed correctly enough the true bent of Angelique's fancy.
"No fear! Le Gardeur de Repentigny, drunk or sober, is a gentleman.
He would reject the Princess d'Elide were she offered on such conditions as you take her on. He is a romantic fool; he believes in woman's virtue and all that stuff!"
"Besides, if he kill the Bourgeois, he will have to fight Pierre Philibert before his sword is dry!" interjected Cadet. "I would not give a Dutch stiver for Le Gardeur's bones five hours after he has pinked the Bourgeois!"
An open duel in form was not to be thought of, because in that they would have to fight the son and not the father, and the great object would be frustrated. But the Bourgeois might be killed in a sudden fray, when blood was up and swords drawn, when no one, as De Pean remarked, would be able to find an i undotted or a t uncrossed in a fair record of the transaction, which would impose upon the most critical judge as an honorable and justifiable act of self-defence.
This was Cadet's real intent, and perhaps Bigot's, but the Intendant's thoughts lay at unfathomable depths, and were not to be discovered by any traces upon the surface. No divining-rod could tell where the secret spring lay hid which ran under Bigot's motives.
Not so De Pean. He meditated treachery, and it were hard to say whether it was unnoted by the penetrating eye of Bigot. The Intendant, however, did not interfere farther, either by word or sign, but left De Pean to accomplish in his own way the bloody object they all had in view, namely, the death of the Bourgeois and the break-up of the Honnetes Gens. De Pean, while resolving to make Le Gardeur the tool of his wickedness, did not dare to take him into his confidence. He had to be kept in absolute ignorance of the part he was to play in the bloody tragedy until the moment of its denouement arrived. Meantime he must be plied with drink, maddened with jealousy, made desperate with losses, and at war with himself and all the world, and then the whole fury of his rage should, by the artful contrivance of De Pean, be turned, without a minute's time for reflection, upon the head of the unsuspecting Bourgeois.
To accomplish this successfully, a woman's aid was required, at once to blind Le Gardeur and to sharpen his sword.
In the interests of the Company Angelique des Meloises was at all times a violent partisan. The Golden Dog and all its belongings were objects of her open aversion. But De Pean feared to impart to her his intention to push Le Gardeur blindly into the affair. She might fear for the life of one she loved. De Pean reflected angrily on this, but he determined she should be on the spot. The sight of her and a word from her, which De Pean would prompt at the critical moment, should decide Le Gardeur to attack the Bourgeois and kill him; and then, what would follow? De Pean rubbed his hands with ecstasy at the thought that Le Gardeur would inevitably bite the dust under the avenging hand of Pierre Philibert, and Angelique would be his beyond all fear of rivals.
