“Well, that’s fair enough,” said Rouget, glancing at Flore.

“A-mer-i-ca!” she ejaculated, sobbing.

“It is better to kick his legs about in a free country than have them rot in a pine box in France.  However, perhaps you think he is a good shot, and can kill me; it’s on the cards,” observed the colonel.

“Will you let me speak to him?” said Flore, imploring Philippe in a humble and submissive tone.

“Certainly; he can come here and pack up his things.  I will stay with my uncle during that time; for I shall not leave the old man again,” replied Philippe.

“Vedie,” cried Flore, “run to the hotel, and tell Monsieur Gilet that I beg him—­”

“—­to come and get his belongings,” said Philippe, interrupting Flore’s message.

“Yes, yes, Vedie; that will be a good pretext to see me; I must speak to him.”

Terror controlled her hatred; and the shock which her whole being experienced when she first encountered this strong and pitiless nature was now so overwhelming that she bowed before Philippe just as Rouget had been in the habit of bending before her.  She anxiously awaited Vedie’s return.  The woman brought a formal refusal from Max, who requested Mademoiselle Brazier to send his things to the hotel de la Poste.

“Will you allow me to take them to him?” she said to Jean-Jacques Rouget.

“Yes, but will you come back?” said the old man.

“If Mademoiselle is not back by midday, you will give me a power of attorney to attend to your property,” said Philippe, looking at Flore.  “Take Vedie with you, to save appearances, mademoiselle.  In future you are to think of my uncle’s honor.”

Flore could get nothing out of Max.  Desperate at having allowed himself, before the eyes of the whole town, to be routed out of his shameless position, Gilet was too proud to run away from Philippe.  The Rabouilleuse combated this objection, and proposed that they should fly together to America; but Max, who did not want Flore without her money, and yet did not wish the girl to see the bottom of his heart, insisted on his intention of killing Philippe.

“We have committed a monstrous folly,” he said.  “We ought all three to have gone to Paris and spent the winter there; but how could one guess, from the mere sight of that fellow’s big carcass, that things would turn out as they have?  The turn of events is enough to make one giddy!  I took the colonel for one of those fire-eaters who haven’t two ideas in their head; that was the blunder I made.  As I didn’t have the sense to double like a hare in the beginning, I’ll not be such a coward as to back down before him.  He has lowered me in the estimation of this town, and I cannot get back what I have lost unless I kill him.”

“Go to America with forty thousand francs.  I’ll find a way to get rid of that scoundrel, and join you.  It would be much wiser.”