Fontaine, with an extremely ingenuous air.
"Why, yes!" said La Cibot, taking a hundred francs from her pocket and
laying them down on the edge of the table. "Going to be murdered,
think of it--"
"Ah! there it is! You would have the _grand jeu_; but don't take on
so, all the folk that are murdered on the cards don't die."
"But is it possible, Ma'am Fontaine?"
"Oh, _I_ know nothing about it, my pretty dear! You would rap at the
door of the future; I pull the cord, and it came."
"_It_, what?" asked Mme. Cibot.
"Well, then, the Spirit!" cried the sorceress impatiently.
"Good-bye, Ma'am Fontaine," exclaimed the portress. "I did not know
what the _grand jeu_ was like. You have given me a good fright, that
you have."
"The mistress will not put herself in that state twice in a month,"
said the servant, as she went with La Cibot to the landing. "She would
do herself to death if she did, it tires her so. She will eat cutlets
now and sleep for three hours afterwards."
Out in the street La Cibot took counsel of herself as she went along,
and, after the manner of all who ask for advice of any sort or
description, she took the favorable part of the prediction and
rejected the rest. The next day found her confirmed in her resolutions
--she would set all in train to become rich by securing a part of
Pons' collection. Nor for some time had she any other thought than the
combination of various plans to this end. The faculty of
self-concentration seen in rough, uneducated persons, explained on a
previous page, the reserve power accumulated in those whose mental
energies are unworn by the daily wear and tear of social life, and
brought into action so soon as that terrible weapon the "fixed idea"
is brought into play,--all this was pre-eminently manifested in La
Cibot.
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