“Certainly,” said Vanel, awkwardly.
“To oblige a man who by that means might and would be made a devoted friend.”
“Certainly, Monseigneur.”
“And the more completely a friend, M. Vanel, in proportion to the importance of the service rendered, since the value of the service he had received would have been so considerable. Well, what do you decide?”
Vanel preserved silence. In the mean time Aramis had continued his observations. Vanel’s narrow face, his deeply sunk orbits, his arched eyebrows, had revealed to the Bishop of Vannes the type of an avaricious and ambitious character. Aramis’s method was to oppose one passion by another. He saw Fouquet defeated, demoralized; he threw himself into the contest with new weapons. “Excuse me, Monseigneur,” he said; “you forget to show M. Vanel that his own interests are diametrically opposed to this renunciation of the sale.”
Vanel looked at the bishop with astonishment; he had hardly expected to find an auxiliary in him. Fouquet also paused to listen to the bishop.
“Do you not see,” continued Aramis, “that M. Vanel, in order to purchase your appointment, has been obliged to sell a property which belongs to his wife? Well, that is no slight matter; for one cannot displace fourteen or fifteen hundred thousand livres, as he has done, without considerable loss and very serious inconvenience.”
“Perfectly true,” said Vanel, whose secret Aramis had with his keen-sighted gaze wrung from the bottom of his heart.
“Such embarrassments,” pursued Aramis, “resolve themselves into expenses; and when one has a large disbursement to make, expenses are to be considered.”
“Yes, yes,” said Fouquet, who began to understand Aramis’s meaning.
Vanel remained silent; he, too, had understood him.
Aramis observed his coldness of manner and his silence. “Very good,” he said to himself, “you are waiting, I see, until you know the amount; but do not fear! I shall send you such a flight of crowns that you cannot but capitulate on the spot.”
“We must offer M. Vanel a hundred thousand crowns at once,” said Fouquet, carried away by his generosity.
The sum was a good one. A prince, even, would have been satisfied with such a bonus. A hundred thousand crowns at that period was the dowry of a king’s daughter.
Vanel, however, did not move.
“He is a rascal!” thought the bishop; “we must offer the five hundred thousand livres at once!” and he made a sign to Fouquet.
“You seem to have spent more than that, dear M. Vanel,” said the superintendent. “The price of money is enormous. You must have made a great sacrifice in selling your wife’s property. Well, what can I have been thinking of? It is an order for five hundred thousand livres that I am about to sign for you; and even in that case I shall feel that I am greatly indebted to you.”
There was not a single gleam of delight or desire on Vanel’s face, which remained impassive; not a muscle of it changed in the slightest degree. Aramis cast a look of despair at Fouquet, and then, going straight up to Vanel and taking hold of him by the coat with the gesture used by men of high rank, he said: “M. Vanel, it is neither the inconvenience, nor the displacement of your money, nor the sale of your wife’s property even, that you are thinking of at this moment, it is something still more important. I can well understand it, so pay particular attention to what I am going to say.”
“Yes, Monseigneur,” Vanel replied, beginning to tremble. The fire in the eyes of the prelate scorched him.
“I offer you, therefore, in the superintendent’s name, not three hundred thousand livres, nor five hundred thousand, but a million. A million,- do you understand me?” he added, as he shook him nervously.
“A million!” repeated Vanel, as pale as death.
“A million; in other words, at the present rate of interest, an income of seventy thousand livres!”
“Come, Monsieur,” said Fouquet, “you can hardly refuse that. Answer! Do you accept?”
“Impossible!” murmured Vanel.
Aramis bit his lips, and something like a white cloud passed over his face. That cloud indicated thunder. He still kept his hold on Vanel. “You have purchased the appointment for fifteen hundred thousand livres, I think? Well, we will give you these fifteen hundred thousand livres; by paying M. Fouquet a visit, and shaking hands with him, you will have become a gainer of a million and a half. You get honor and profit at the same time, M. Vanel.”