" At present servants wander from one
house to another, looking on their abode as a mere inn where they
may find shelter till they are disposed for another journey. And
families receive them as transient, and not unfrequently as
dangerous, guests, whom it is always wise to treat with distrust.
The key of the wine-cellar is not confided to these unreliable
inmates; they are intrusted with the charge of little else than
the children--a practice which is often productive of terrible
results.
M. Casimir was no doubt honest, in the strict sense of the word.
He would have scorned to rob his master of a ten-sous piece; and
yet he would not have hesitated in the least to defraud him of a
hundred francs, if an opportunity had presented itself. Vain and
rapacious in disposition, he consoled himself by refusing to obey
any one save his employer, by envying him with his whole heart,
and by cursing fate for not having made him the Count de Chalusse
instead of the Count de Chalusse's servant. As he received high
wages, he served passably well; but he employed the best part of
his energy in watching the count. He scented some great family
secret in the household, and he felt angry and humiliated that
this secret had not been intrusted to his discretion. And if he
had discovered nothing, it was because M. de Chalusse had been
caution personified, as Madame Leon had declared.
Thus it happened that when M. Casimir saw Mademoiselle Marguerite
and the count searching in the garden for the fragments of a
letter destroyed in a paroxysm of rage which he had personally
witnessed, his natural curiosity was heightened to such a degree
as to become unendurable.
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