Thereupon he told her how Pere Achille had met Sidonie and Georges one night at eleven o'clock, just as they entered a small furnished lodging-house in the Montmartre quarter; and he was a man who never lied. They had known him for a long while. Besides, others had met them.

Nothing else was talked about at the factory. Risler alone suspected nothing.

"But it is your duty to tell him," declared Mademoiselle Pla.n.u.s.

The cashier's face a.s.sumed a grave expression.

"It is a very delicate matter. In the first place, who knows whether he would believe me? There are blind men so blind that--And then, by interfering between the two partners, I risk the loss of my place. Oh!

the women--the women! When I think how happy Risler might have been.

When I sent for him to come to Paris with his brother, he hadn't a sou; and to-day he is at the head of one of the first houses in Paris. Do you suppose that he would be content with that? Oh! no, of course not!

Monsieur must marry. As if any one needed to marry! And, worse yet, he marries a Parisian woman, one of those frowsy-haired chits that are the ruin of an honest house, when he had at his hand a fine girl, of almost his own age, a countrywoman, used to work, and well put together, as you might say!"

"Mademoiselle Pla.n.u.s, my sister," to whose physical structure he alluded, had a magnificent opportunity to exclaim, "Oh! the men, the men!" but she was silent. It was a very delicate question, and perhaps, if Risler had chosen in time, he might have been the only one.

Old Sigismond continued:

"And this is what we have come to. For three months the leading wall-paper factory in Paris has been tied to the petticoats of that good-for-nothing. You should see how the money flies. All day long I do nothing but open my wicket to meet Monsieur Georges's calls. He always applies to me, because at his banker's too much notice would be taken of it, whereas in our office money comes and goes, comes in and goes out.

But look out for the inventory! We shall have some pretty figures to show at the end of the year. The worst part of the whole business is that Risler won't listen to anything. I have warned him several times: 'Look out, Monsieur Georges is making a fool of himself for some woman.'

He either turns away with a shrug, or else he tells me that it is none of his business and that Fromont Jeune is the master. Upon my word, one would almost think--one would almost think--"

The cashier did not finish his sentence; but his silence was pregnant with unspoken thoughts.

The old maid was appalled; but, like most women under such circ.u.mstances, instead of seeking a remedy for the evil, she wandered off into a maze of regrets, conjectures, and retrospective lamentations.

What a misfortune that they had not known it sooner when they had the Chebes for neighbors. Madame Chebe was such an honorable woman. They might have put the matter before her so that she would keep an eye on Sidonie and talk seriously to her.

"Indeed, that's a good idea," Sigismond interrupted. "You must go to the Rue du Mail and tell her parents. I thought at first of writing to little Frantz. He always had a great deal of influence over his brother, and he's the only person on earth who could say certain things to him.

But Frantz is so far away. And then it would be such a terrible thing to do. I can't help pitying that unlucky Risler, though. No! the best way is to tell Madame Chebe. Will you undertake to do it, sister?"

It was a dangerous commission. Mademoiselle Pla.n.u.s made some objections, but she never had been able to resist her brother's wishes, and the desire to be of service to their old friend Risler a.s.sisted materially in persuading her.

Thanks to his son-in-law's kindness, M. Chebe had succeeded in gratifying his latest whim. For three months past he had been living at his famous warehouse on the Rue du Mail, and a great sensation was created in the quarter by that shop without merchandise, the shutters of which were taken down in the morning and put up again at night, as in wholesale houses. Shelves had been placed all around the walls, there was a new counter, a safe, a huge pair of scales. In a word, M. Chebe possessed all the requisites of a business of some sort, but did not know as yet just what business he would choose.

He pondered the subject all day as he walked to and fro across the shop, enc.u.mbered with several large pieces of bedroom furniture which they had been unable to get into the back room; he pondered it, too, as he stood on his doorstep, with his pen behind his ear, and feasted his eyes delightedly on the hurly-burly of Parisian commerce. The clerks who pa.s.sed with their packages of samples under their arms, the vans of the express companies, the omnibuses, the porters, the wheelbarrows, the great bales of merchandise at the neighboring doors, the packages of rich stuffs and tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs which were dragged in the mud before being consigned to those underground regions, those dark holes stuffed with treasures, where the fortune of business lies in embryo--all these things delighted M. Chebe.

He amused himself guessing at the contents of the bales and was first at the fray when some pa.s.ser-by received a heavy package upon his feet, or the horses attached to a dray, spirited and restive, made the long vehicle standing across the street an obstacle to circulation. He had, moreover, the thousand-and-one distractions of the petty tradesman without customers, the heavy showers, the accidents, the thefts, the disputes.

At the end of the day M. Chebe, dazed, bewildered, worn out by the labor of other people, would stretch himself out in his easy-chair and say to his wife, as he wiped his forehead:

"That's the kind of life I need--an active life."

Madame Chebe would smile softly without replying. Accustomed as she was to all her husband's whims, she had made herself as comfortable as possible in a back room with an outlook upon a dark yard, consoling herself with reflections on the former prosperity of her parents and her daughter's wealth; and, being always neatly dressed, she had succeeded already in acquiring the respect of neighbors and tradesmen.

She asked nothing more than not to be confounded with the wives of workingmen, often less poor than herself, and to be allowed to retain, in spite of everything, a petty bourgeois superiority. That was her constant thought; and so the back room in which she lived, and where it was dark at three in the afternoon, was resplendent with order and cleanliness. During the day the bed became a couch, an old shawl did duty as a tablecloth, the fireplace, hidden by a screen, served as a pantry, and the meals were cooked in modest retirement on a stove no larger than a foot-warmer. A tranquil life--that was the dream of the poor woman, who was continually tormented by the whims of an uncongenial companion.

In the early days of his tenancy, M. Chebe had caused these words to be inscribed in letters a foot long on the fresh paint of his shop-front:

COMMISSION--EXPORTATION

No specifications. His neighbors sold tulle, broadcloth, linen; he was inclined to sell everything, but could not make up his mind just what.

With what arguments did his indecision lead him to favor Madame Chebe as they sat together in the evening!

"I don't know anything about linen; but when you come to broadcloth, I understand that. Only, if I go into broadcloths I must have a man to travel; for the best kinds come from Sedan and Elbeuf. I say nothing about calicoes; summer is the time for them. As for tulle, that's out of the question; the season is too far advanced."

He usually brought his discourse to a close with the words:

"The night will bring counsel--let us go to bed."

And to bed he would go, to his wife's great relief.

After three or four months of this life, M. Chebe began to tire of it.

The pains in the head, the dizzy fits gradually returned. The quarter was noisy and unhealthy: besides, business was at a standstill. Nothing was to be done in any line, broadcloths, tissues, or anything else.

It was just at the period of this new crisis that "Mademoiselle Pla.n.u.s, my sister," called to speak about Sidonie.

The old maid had said to herself on the way, "I must break it gently."

But, like all shy people, she relieved herself of her burden in the first words she spoke after entering the house.

It was a stunning blow. When she heard the accusation made against her daughter, Madame Chebe rose in indignation. No one could ever make her believe such a thing. Her poor Sidonie was the victim of an infamous slander.

M. Chebe, for his part, adopted a very lofty tone, with significant phrases and motions of the head, taking everything to himself as was his custom. How could any one suppose that his child, a Chebe, the daughter of an honorable business man known for thirty years on the street, was capable of Nonsense!

Mademoiselle Pla.n.u.s insisted. It was a painful thing to her to be considered a gossip, a hawker of unsavory stories. But they had incontestable proofs. It was no longer a secret to anybody.

"And even suppose it were true," cried M. Chebe, furious at her persistence. "Is it for us to worry about it? Our daughter is married.

She lives a long way from her parents. It is for her husband, who is much older than she, to advise and guide her. Does he so much as think of doing it?"

Upon that the little man began to inveigh against his son-in-law, that cold-blooded Swiss, who pa.s.sed his life in his office devising machines, refused to accompany his wife into society, and preferred his old-bachelor habits, his pipe and his brewery, to everything else.

You should have seen the air of aristocratic disdain with which M. Chebe p.r.o.nounced the word "brewery!" And yet almost every evening he went there to meet Risler, and overwhelmed him with reproaches if he once failed to appear at the rendezvous.

Behind all this verbiage the merchant of the Rue du Mail--"Commission-Exportation"--had a very definite idea. He wished to give up his shop, to retire from business, and for some time he had been thinking of going to see Sidonie, in order to interest her in his new schemes. That was not the time, therefore, to make disagreeable scenes, to prate about paternal authority and conjugal honor. As for Madame Chebe, being somewhat less confident than before of her daughter's virtue, she took refuge in the most profound silence. The poor woman wished that she were deaf and blind--that she never had known Mademoiselle Pla.n.u.s.

Like all persons who have been very unhappy, she loved a benumbed existence with a semblance of tranquillity, and ignorance seemed to her preferable to everything. As if life were not sad enough, good heavens!

And then, after all, Sidonie had always been a good girl; why should she not be a good woman?

Night was falling. M. Chebe rose gravely to close the shutters of the shop and light a gas-jet which illumined the bare walls, the empty, polished shelves, and the whole extraordinary place, which reminded one strongly of the day following a failure. With his lips closed disdainfully, in his determination to remain silent, he seemed to say to the old lady, "Night has come--it is time for you to go home." And all the while they could hear Madame Chebe sobbing in the back room, as she went to and fro preparing supper.

Mademoiselle Pla.n.u.s got no further satisfaction from her visit.

"Well?" queried old Sigismond, who was impatiently awaiting her return.

"They wouldn't believe me, and politely showed me the door."

She had tears in her eyes at the thought of her humiliation.

The old man's face flushed, and he said in a grave voice, taking his sister's hand:

"Mademoiselle Pla.n.u.s, my sister, I ask your pardon for having made you take this step; but the honor of the house of Fromont was at stake."