But the outcome proved as Mathieu had foreseen.  Lepailleur asked such a monstrous price for his few acres enclosed within the estate that nothing could be done.  When he was approached on the subject by Seguin, he made little secret of the rage he felt at Mathieu’s triumph.  He had told the young man that he would never succeed in reaping an ear of wheat from that uncultivated expanse, given over to brambles for centuries past; and yet now it was covered with abundant crops!  And this had increased the miller’s rancor against the soil; he hated it yet more than ever for its harshness to him, a peasant’s son, and its kindliness towards that bourgeois, who seemed to have fallen from heaven expressly to revolutionize the region.  Thus, in answer to Seguin, he declared with a sneer that since sorcerers had sprung up who were able to make wheat sprout from stones, his patch of ground was now worth its weight in gold.  Several years previously, no doubt, he had offered Seguin the enclosure for a trifle; but times had changed, and he now crowed loudly over the other’s folly in not entertaining his previous offer.

On the other hand, there seemed little likelihood of his turning the enclosure to account himself, for he was more disgusted than ever with the tilling of the soil.  His disposition had been further embittered by the birth of a daughter, whom he would willingly have dispensed with, anxious as he was with respect to his son Antonin, now a lad of twelve, who proved so sharp and quick at school that he was regarded by the folks of Janville as a little prodigy.  Mathieu had mortally offended the father and mother by suggesting that Antonin should be sent to an agricultural college—­a very sensible suggestion, but one which exasperated them, determined as they were to make him a gentleman.

As Lepailleur would not part with his enclosure on any reasonable terms, Seguin had to content himself for the time with selling Mathieu the selected marshland on the plateau.  A deed of conveyance having been prepared, they exchanged signatures.  And then, on Seguin’s hands, there still remained nearly two hundred and fifty acres of woods in the direction of Lillebonne, together with the moorlands stretching to Vieux-Bourg, in which Lepailleur’s few acres were enclosed.

It was on the occasion of the visits which he paid Seguin in reference to these matters that Mathieu became acquainted with the terrible break-up of the other’s home.  The very rooms of the house in the Avenue d’Antin, particularly the once sumptuous “cabinet,” spoke of neglect and abandonment.  The desire to cut a figure in society, and to carry the “fad” of the moment to extremes, ever possessed Seguin; and thus he had for a while renounced his pretended artistic tastes for certain new forms of sport—­the motor-car craze, and so forth.  But his only real passion was horseflesh, and to this he at last returned.  A racing stable which he set up quickly helped on