Jeannin feared that the suddenness of their journey would inconvenience his mistress, and offered to put it off for some days; but to this she would not consent, and it was arranged that the next day at noon a carriage should call at the house and take Angelique out of town to an appointed place at which the treasurer was to join her.
Maitre Quennebert, eye and ear on the alert, had not lost a word of this conversation, and the last proposition of the treasurer changed his ideas.
"Pardieu!" he said to himself, "it looks as if this good man were really going to let himself be taken in and done for.

It is singular how very clear-sighted we can be about things that don't touch us.

This poor fly is going to let himself be caught by a very clever spider, or I'm much mistaken.

Very likely my widow is quite of my opinion, and yet in what concerns herself she will remain stone-blind.

Well, such is life! We have only two parts to choose between: we must be either knave or fool.
What's Madame Rapally doing, I wonder ?" At this moment he heard a stifled whisper from the opposite corner of the room, but, protected by the distance and the darkness, he let the widow murmur on, and applied his eye once more to his peephole.