The trouble was that in the middle of November, Mireille had written asking him for a loan to help her get her divorce. She had explained that under the will of a French aunt, she would inherit the equivalent of around three thousand pounds, but only when de Pra was dead, or divorced by her. The aunt in question had so much disliked the marriage. She had sent Inskipp a copy of her aunt's will, and the name of her solicitor who lived at Clermont Ferrand, and added that she would need about seven hundred pounds at least, that the solicitor in question had offered to lend her the money, but at such extortionate interest that she was very unwilling to accept his offer.
Inskipp had written to the man, and had had a letter from him. Inskipp had wanted to know whether there was any doubt about the divorce being ultimately obtainable. The reply had been entirely reassuring. The avocat had explained, however, that it might cost nearer a thousand than seven hundred pounds, as very expert medical opinions on the question of Mr. de Pra's sanity and impossibility of his condition improving would have to be obtained. He had lived a long time in Indo-China, this would mean extra expense. Maître François added that he could easily raise the sum, but that the client who was prepared to advance it insisted on the high interest to which Madame de Pra objected.
Inskipp thought of going to Clermont-Ferrand, but the journey from Menton was difficult and long, with many changes. Nor would he, a stranger, be able to rely on his judgment of the character of this Maître François. He must get some information about him from a reliable source. And then he remembered that at the Menton branch of the English Bank, the manager had once spoken of knowing Auvergne well. Clermont-Ferrand is the capital of Auvergne.
He went down to Menton, and cashed a note at the bank in question, waiting about until he caught sight of the manager. Then he stepped forward.
Could the manager spare him a few minutes in private? A most obliging man promptly took him into his own room and offered him a chair.
Inskipp explained that he had been given the name of a Maître François, as that of a good avocat of Clermont-Ferrand. Could the manager tell him what was his reputation.
The manager promptly told Inskipp that his affairs could be in no better hands, especially if they belonged to what he might call the family type. "I don't know him personally, but every one in Auvergne knows his name. He rather specialises in divorce cases, but by no means entirely. I hear he is being very much pressed to go into politics. You will be lucky if he takes on any new business."
"Is he well-to-do? Frankly, it's a question of a lady placing rather a large sum of money in his hands to be applied to—er—legal work."
"My dear sir, a Frenchman doesn't think of entering politics if he is not well-to-do! Maître François is considered a rich man, and comes of a very wealthy Clermont-Ferrand family. He belongs to what they call the noblesse de robe."
Inskipp thanked the manager and left. The next post carried a letter to Mireille saying that he could let her have the money without, of course, any interest. Should he send his cheque to her, or to Maître François He had made it out, he wrote, for a thousand pounds, the surplus to be retained temporarily by the solicitor for unexpected emergencies.
She had written him a most grateful note, asking him to send the money to Maître François who would draw up the proper papers for it to rank as a first charge on her legacy from her aunt. She did not want it sent by cheque, however, as it would so remain entered on his books. Under the circumstances, she thought the money had best be sent in 1,000-franc notes.
Inskipp thought it over, and decided that her caution was justified.
The pound was exactly a hundred francs at the moment, so that a very small packet of the thin, beautiful, French notes made up the equivalent of the sum wanted. Inskipp obtained them at the bank in Menton against his cheque, and, for additional safety in the post, had the manager make a note of their numbers.
Maître François duly acknowledged the notes, enclosed some papers for Inskipp to sign, and said that the figure set was an outside estimate which he hoped not to have to reach.
Mireille wrote to Inskipp scolding him tenderly for his generosity. She herself was living very cheaply at the convent, and would be at still less expense in the future, as the time had now come for her yearly round of inescapable family visits to begin. Inskipp was to continue to send all his letters as, at her request, he had done the last ones to her, care of Maître François. Otherwise, Mireille wrote, she and he could not correspond at all. The idea of her receiving a letter in an unknown handwriting—a man's too—without reading it aloud, was unthinkable to her family circle. As for her arm—it was healing very well, but she still could not hold anything small, such as a needle, or even a pen, in her fingers without her hand aching badly. Her relations always went to one or other of the many French spas and were already discussing which would be best for her arm. No, she could not get away to La Chèvre d'Or yet. But once her three months' duty round was over, she could come—and come without rousing comment, and be there for the spring parade of Provence.
When the blow of his almost unsaleable shares fell on him, Inskipp thought it over, thinking for two people, himself and his future wife, Mireille for they were by now definitely engaged—and it seemed to him that there was but one thing to do. Mireille must borrow from her solicitor the equivalent of the thousand pounds which he had lent her and he—Inskipp—would take back his own loan and pay the ten per cent interest asked by the solicitor's client. It could not be much longer now before the divorce went through—another three months at most, thought the Clermont man, and then the money could be repaid from the legacy coming to Mireille. As for himself, Inskipp believed that if he went and had a personal interview, his own old Stock Exchange firm, who happened to have just lost a partner, might let him come in again with his depreciated shares as his investment and, since he was returning to the House, he could arrange to be let off the purchase price of his seat, or at any rate have it lessened to a sum which he could raise. Meanwhile, with the return of the thousand by Mireille he could live, and as his income from the firm he intended to join would, after the first year, be quite adequate, he and Mireille could start life together in comfort if not in luxury. But he must first, for both their sakes, get back his loan—and he wrote a very businesslike note to Mireille, setting it all out clearly.
He had, in return, one of the most enchanting letters which he had yet had. Inskipp read it with tears in his eyes. His heart was very tender towards the lovely creature who had come into his life, "lovely within as without," he murmured, as he put the letter away. For the rest, he was glad that he had the photographs of her that she had given to Florence Rackstraw, for there were no photographers near the convent, and, though Mireille wrote every now and then that she would have her portrait taken, she had very little time for long outings. He had let her guess almost at once by some phrase of hers that he had, or had seen, her portrait, and she more than once wrote as though that should content him until they should meet. Inskipp with some misgivings, had finally sent her one of his that he had taken for the purpose in Menton, and she had said that he looked just as she had thought that he would look. A sentence which made him laugh a little wryly, and put aside in his memory as something with which to tease her, when they really should talk together...When he should hear her voice... Florence said that she had the most beautiful voice that she had ever heard, and Inskipp loved a sweet voice.
The reply from the solicitor at Clermont, as Inskipp called the town to himself, was slow in coming. Maître François pointed out that it might take him some time to find any one willing to lend the necessary amount needed by Madame de Pra, as the client who had proposed it before had been drowned in one of the recent floods which had turned the surrounding plains into lakes. He did not despair, he said, of ultimately finding a lender, but, just at the moment money was very tight. That he did not think the loan an impossibility, was the great thing, Inskipp decided, for François had struck him from his letters as a man