"Ten to one against it!" said Lajeunesse anxiously. Then he brightened
as he saw a shadow cross her face. "But you can make him do anything--as
you always made me," he added, shaking his tousled head and taking with a
droll eagerness the glass of wine she offered him.




CHAPTER III

"MAN TO MAN AND STEEL TO STEEL"

One evening a fortnight later Louis Racine and George Fournel, the
Englishman, stood face to face in the library of the Manor House. There
was antagonism and animosity in the attitude of both. Apart from the
fact that Louis had succeeded to the Seigneury promised to Fournel, and
sealed to him by a reputed will which had never been found, there was
cause for hatred on the Englishman's part. Fournel had been an
incredibly successful man. Things had come his way--wealth, and the
power that wealth brings. He had but two set-backs, and the man before
him in the Manor House of Pontiac was the cause of both. The last rebuff
had been the succession to the Seigneury, which, curious as it might
seem, had been the cherished dream of the rich man's retirement. It had
been his fancy to play the Seigneur, the lord magnificent and bountiful,
and he had determined to use wealth and all manner of influence to have
the title of Baron of Pontiac revived--it had been obsolete for a hundred
years. He leaned towards the grace of an hereditary dignity, as other
retired millionaires cultivate art and letters, vainly imagining that
they can wheedle civilisation and the humanities into giving them what
they do not possess by nature, and fool the world at the same time.