“Both clauses seem to me perfectly just,” said Maitre Mathias.  “As to their ratification, Monsieur le comte can, doubtless, come to an understanding with the chancellor, if necessary.”

Solonet took a pen and added this momentous clause on the margin of the contract.  Paul and Natalie paid no attention to the matter; but Madame Evangelista dropped her eyes while Maitre Mathias read the added sentence aloud.

“We will now sign,” said the mother.

The volume of voice which Madame Evangelista repressed as she uttered those words betrayed her violent emotion.  She was thinking to herself:  “No, my daughter shall not be ruined—­but he!  My daughter shall have the name, the title, and the fortune.  If she should some day discover that she does not love him, that she loves another, irresistibly, Paul shall be driven out of France!  My daughter shall be free, and happy, and rich.”

If Maitre Mathias understood how to analyze business interests, he knew little of the analysis of human passions.  He accepted Madame Evangelista’s words as an honorable “amende,” instead of judging them for what they were, a declaration of war.  While Solonet and his clerk superintended Natalie as she signed the documents,—­an operation which took time,—­Mathias took Paul aside and told him the meaning of the stipulation by which he had saved him from ultimate pain.

“The whole affair is now ‘en regle.’  I hold the documents.  But the contract contains a rescript for the diamonds; you must ask for them.  Business is business.  Diamonds are going up just now, but may go down.  The purchase of those new domains justifies you in turning everything into money that you can.  Therefore, Monsieur le comte, have no false modesty in this matter.  The first payment is due after the formalities are over.  The sum is two hundred thousand francs; put the diamonds into that.  You have the lien on this house, which will be sold at once, and will pay the rest.  If you have the courage to spend only fifty thousand francs for the next three years, you can save the two hundred thousand francs you are now obliged to pay.  If you plant vineyards on your new estates, you can get an income of over twenty-five thousand francs upon them.  You may be said, in short, to have made a good marriage.”

Paul pressed the hand of his old friend very affectionately, a gesture which did not escape Madame Evangelista, who now came forward to offer him the pen.  Suspicion became certainty to her mind.  She was confident that Paul and Mathias had come to an understanding about her.  Rage and hatred sent the blood surging through her veins to her heart.  The worst had come.

After verifying that all the documents were duly signed and the initials of the parties affixed to the bottom of the leaves, Maitre Mathias looked from Paul to his mother-in-law, and seeing that his client did not intend to speak of the diamonds, he said:—­