“Maria-Louisa was the ruin of Bonaparte,” muttered Mathias.

Natalie’s mother caught the words.

“If my sacrifices are worth nothing,” she cried, “I do not choose to continue such a discussion; I trust to the discretion of Monsieur le comte, and I renounce the honor of his hand for my daughter.”

According to the strategy marked out by the younger notary, this battle of contending interests had now reached the point where victory was certain for Madame Evangelista.  The mother-in-law had opened her heart, delivered up her property, and was therefore practically released as her daughter’s guardian.  The future husband, under pain of ignoring the laws of generous propriety and being false to love, ought now to accept these conditions previously planned, and cleverly led up to by Solonet and Madame Evangelista.  Like the hands of a clock turned by mechanism, Paul came faithfully up to time.

“Madame!” he exclaimed, “is it possible you can think of breaking off the marriage?”

“Monsieur,” she replied, “to whom am I accountable?  To my daughter.  When she is twenty-one years of age she will receive my guardianship account and release me.  She will then possess a million, and can, if she likes, choose her husband among the sons of the peers of France.  She is a daughter of the Casa-Reale.”

“Madame is right,” remarked Solonet.  “Why should she be more hardly pushed to-day than she will be fourteen months hence?  You ought not to deprive her of the benefits of her maternity.”

“Mathias,” cried Paul, in deep distress, “there are two sorts of ruin, and you are bringing one upon me at this moment.”

He made a step towards the old notary, no doubt intending to tell him that the contract must be drawn at once.  But Mathias stopped that disaster with a glance which said, distinctly, “Wait!” He saw the tears in Paul’s eyes,—­tears drawn from an honorable man by the shame of this discussion as much as by the peremptory speech of Madame Evangelista, threatening rupture,—­and the old man stanched them with a gesture like that of Archimedes when he cried, “Eureka!” The words “peer of France” had been to him like a torch in a dark crypt.

Natalie appeared at this moment, dazzling as the dawn, saying, with infantine look and manner, “Am I in the way?”

“Singularly so, my child,” answered her mother, in a bitter tone.

“Come in, dear Natalie,” said Paul, taking her hand and leading her to a chair near the fireplace.  “All is settled.”

He felt it impossible to endure the overthrow of their mutual hopes.

“Yes, all can be settled,” said Mathias, hastily interposing.

Like a general who, in a moment, upsets the plans skilfully laid and prepared by the enemy, the old notary, enlightened by that genius which presides over notaries, saw an idea, capable of saving the future of Paul and his children, unfolding itself in legal form before his eyes.