"You must think me strangely calm," said the brave woman; "but I shed all my tears yesterday. You may have thought that I was weeping over our ruin; you were mistaken. While one is young and strong as we are, such cowardly conduct is not permissible. We are armed against want and can fight it face to face. No, I was weeping for our departed happiness, for you, for the madness that led you to throw away your only, your true friend."

She was lovely, lovelier than Sidonie had ever been, as she spoke thus, enveloped by a pure light which seemed to fall upon her from a great height, like the radiance of a fathomless, cloudless sky; whereas the other's irregular features had always seemed to owe their brilliancy, their saucy, insolent charm to the false glamour of the footlights in some cheap theatre. The touch of statuesque immobility formerly noticeable in Claire's face was vivified by anxiety, by doubt, by all the torture of pa.s.sion; and like those gold ingots which have their full value only when the Mint has placed its stamp upon them, those beautiful features stamped with the effigy of sorrow had acquired since the preceding day an ineffaceable expression which perfected their beauty.

Georges gazed at her in admiration. She seemed to him more alive, more womanly, and worthy of adoration because of their separation and all the obstacles that he now knew to stand between them. Remorse, despair, shame entered his heart simultaneously with this new love, and he would have fallen on his knees before her.

"No, no, do not kneel," said Claire; "if you knew of what you remind me, if you knew what a lying face, distorted with hatred, I saw at my feet last night!"

"Ah! but I am not lying," replied Georges with a shudder. "Claire, I implore you, in the name of our child--"

At that moment some one knocked at the door.

"Rise, I beg of you! You see that life has claims upon us," she said in a low voice and with a bitter smile; then she asked what was wanted.

Monsieur Risler had sent for Monsieur to come down to the office.

"Very well," she said; "say that he will come."

Georges approached the door, but she stopped him.

"No, let me go. He must not see you yet."

"But--"

"I wish you to stay here. You have no idea of the indignation and wrath of that poor man, whom you have deceived. If you had seen him last night, crushing his wife's wrists!"

As she said it she looked him in the face with a curiosity most cruel to herself; but Georges did not wince, and replied simply:

"My life belongs to him."

"It belongs to me, too; and I do not wish you to go down. There has been scandal enough in my father's house. Remember that the whole factory is aware of what is going on. Every one is watching us, spying upon us. It required all the authority of the foremen to keep the men busy to-day, to compel them to keep their inquisitive looks on their work."

"But I shall seem to be hiding."

"And suppose it were so! That is just like a man. They do not recoil from the worst crimes: betraying a wife, betraying a friend; but the thought that they may be accused of being afraid touches them more keenly than anything. Moreover, listen to what I say. Sidonie has gone; she has gone forever; and if you leave this house I shall think that you have gone to join her."

"Very well, I will stay," said Georges. "I will do whatever you wish."

Claire descended into Pla.n.u.s' office.

To see Risler striding to and fro, with his hands behind his back, as calm as usual, no one would ever have suspected all that had taken place in his life since the night before. As for Sigismond, he was fairly beaming, for he saw nothing in it all beyond the fact that the notes had been paid at maturity and that the honor of the firm was safe.

When Madame Fromont appeared, Risler smiled sadly and shook his head.

"I thought that you would prefer to come down in his place; but you are not the one with whom I have to deal. It is absolutely necessary that I should see Georges and talk with him. We have paid the notes that fell due this morning; the crisis has pa.s.sed; but we must come to an understanding about many matters."

"Risler, my friend, I beg you to wait a little longer."

"Why, Madame Chorche, there's not a minute to lose. Oh! I suspect that you fear I may give way to an outbreak of anger. Have no fear--let him have no fear. You know what I told you, that the honor of the house of Fromont is to be a.s.sured before my own. I have endangered it by my fault. First of all, I must repair the evil I have done or allowed to be done."

"Your conduct toward us is worthy of all admiration, my good Risler; I know it well."

"Oh! Madame, if you could see him! he's a saint," said poor Sigismond, who, not daring to speak to his friend, was determined at all events to express his remorse.

"But aren't you afraid?" continued Claire. "Human endurance has its limits. It may be that in presence of the man who has injured you so--"

Risler took her hands, gazed into her eyes with grave admiration, and said:

"You dear creature, who speak of nothing but the injury done to me! Do you not know that I hate him as bitterly for his falseness to you? But nothing of that sort has any existence for me at this moment. You see in me simply a business man who wishes to have an understanding with his partner for the good of the firm. So let him come down without the slightest fear, and if you dread any outbreak on my part, stay here with us. I shall need only to look at my old master's daughter to be reminded of my promise and my duty."

"I trust you, my friend," said Claire; and she went up to bring her husband.

The first minute of the interview was terrible. Georges was deeply moved, humiliated, pale as death. He would have preferred a hundred times over to be looking into the barrel of that man's pistol at twenty paces, awaiting his fire, instead of appearing before him as an unpunished culprit and being compelled to confine his feelings within the commonplace limits of a business conversation.

Risler pretended not to look at him, and continued to pace the floor as he talked:

"Our house is pa.s.sing through a terrible crisis. We have averted the disaster for to-day; but this is not the last of our obligations. That cursed invention has kept my mind away from the business for a long while. Luckily, I am free now, and able to attend to it. But you must give your attention to it as well. The workmen and clerks have followed the example of their employers to some extent. Indeed, they have become extremely negligent and indifferent. This morning, for the first time in a year, they began work at the proper time. I expect that you will make it your business to change all that. As for me, I shall work at my drawings again. Our patterns are old-fashioned. We must have new ones for the new machines. I have great confidence in our presses. The experiments have succeeded beyond my hopes. We unquestionably have in them a means of building up our business. I didn't tell you sooner because I wished to surprise you; but we have no more surprises for each other, have we, Georges?"

There was such a stinging note of irony in his voice that Claire shuddered, fearing an outbreak; but he continued, in his natural tone.

"Yes, I think I can promise that in six months the Risler Press will begin to show magnificent results. But those six months will be very hard to live through. We must limit ourselves, cut down our expenses, save in every way that we can. We have five draughtsmen now; hereafter we will have but two. I will undertake to make the absence of the others of no consequence by working at night myself. Furthermore, beginning with this month, I abandon my interest in the firm. I will take my salary as foreman as I took it before, and nothing more."

Fromont attempted to speak, but a gesture from his wife restrained him, and Risler continued:

"I am no longer your partner, Georges. I am once more the clerk that I never should have ceased to be. From this day our partnership articles are cancelled. I insist upon it, you understand; I insist upon it. We will remain in that relation to each other until the house is out of difficulty and I can--But what I shall do then concerns me alone. This is what I wanted to say to you, Georges. You must give your attention to the factory diligently; you must show yourself, make it felt that you are master now, and I believe there will turn out to be, among all our misfortunes, some that can be retrieved."

During the silence that followed, they heard the sound of wheels in the garden, and two great furniture vans stopped at the door.

"I beg your pardon," said Risler, "but I must leave you a moment. Those are the vans from the public auction rooms; they have come to take away my furniture from upstairs."

"What! you are going to sell your furniture too?" asked Madame Fromont.

"Certainly--to the last piece. I am simply giving it back to the firm.

It belongs to it."

"But that is impossible," said Georges. "I can not allow that."

Risler turned upon him indignantly.

"What's that? What is it that you can't allow?"

Claire checked him with an imploring gesture.

"True--true!" he muttered; and he hurried from the room to escape the sudden temptation to give vent to all that was in his heart.

The second floor was deserted. The servants, who had been paid and dismissed in the morning, had abandoned the apartments to the disorder of the day following a ball; and they wore the aspect peculiar to places where a drama has been enacted, and which are left in suspense, as it were, between the events that have happened and those that are still to happen. The open doors, the rugs lying in heaps in the corners, the salvers laden with gla.s.ses, the preparations for the supper, the table still set and untouched, the dust from the dancing on all the furniture, its odor mingled with the fumes of punch, of withered flowers, of rice-powder--all these details attracted Risler's notice as he entered.

In the disordered salon the piano was open, the baccha.n.a.l from 'Orphee aux Enfers' on the music-shelf, and the gaudy hangings surrounding that scene of desolation, the chairs overturned, as if in fear, reminded one of the saloon of a wrecked packet-boat, of one of those ghostly nights of watching when one is suddenly informed, in the midst of a fete at sea, that the ship has sprung a leak, that she is taking in water in every part.