But Gaubertin's fixed idea of acquiring Les Aigues at the old lady's death led him to depreciate the value of the magnificent estate in the matter of its ostensible revenues.
Mademoiselle Cochet, a sharer in the scheme, was also to share the profits.

As the ex-divinity in her declining years received an income of twenty thousand francs from the Funds called consolidated (how readily the tongue of politics can jest!), and with difficulty spent the said sum yearly, she was much surprised at the annual purchases made by her steward to use up the accumulating revenues, remembering how in former times she had always drawn them in advance.

The result of having few wants in her old age seemed, to her mind, a proof of the honesty and uprightness of Gaubertin and Mademoiselle Cochet.
"Two pearls!" she said to the persons who came to see her.
Gaubertin kept his accounts with apparent honesty.

He entered all rentals duly.

Everything that could strike the feeble mind of the late singer, so far as arithmetic went, was clear and precise.