Finding the front door locked, Vaudoyer looked above the window blinds and called out:-- "Monsieur Rigou, it is I,--Vaudoyer." Jean came round from the porte-cochere and said to Vaudoyer:-- "Come into the garden; Monsieur has company." The company was Sibilet, who, under pretext of discussing the verdict Brunet had just handed in, was talking to Rigou of quite other matters.
He had found the usurer finishing his dessert.

On a square dinner-table covered with a dazzling white cloth--for, regardless of his wife and Annette who did the washing, Rigou exacted clean table-linen every day--the steward noted strawberries, apricots, peaches, figs, and almonds, all the fruits of the season in profusion, served in white porcelain dishes on vine-leaves as daintily as at Les Aigues.
Seeing Sibilet, Rigou told him to run the bolts of the inside double-doors, which were added to the other doors as much to stifle sounds as to keep out the cold air, and asked him what pressing business brought him there in broad daylight when it was so much safer to confer together at night.
"The Shopman talks of going to Paris to see the Keeper of the Seals; he is capable of doing you a great deal of harm; he may ask for the dismissal of your son-in-law, and the removal of the judges at Ville-aux-Fayes, especially after reading the verdict just rendered in your favor.

He has turned at bay; he is shrewd, and he has an adviser in that abbe, who is quite able to tilt with you and Gaubertin.

Priests are powerful.

Monseigneur the bishop thinks a great deal of the Abbe Brossette.