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The place it occupied in that part of the Marais, which was at certain hours enveloped by its smoke and its din, Risler's enthusiasm, his fabulous tales concerning his employer's wealth and goodness and cleverness, had aroused that childish curiosity; and such portions as she could see of the dwelling-houses, the carved wooden blinds, the circular front steps, with the garden-seats before them, a great white bird-house with gilt stripes glistening in the sun, the blue-lined coupe standing in the courtyard, were to her objects of continual admiration.
When he reached it, he inquired timidly if Madame Chebe's little allowance would be continued. "Yes," was Risler's reply, "but never go beyond it, for my position here is not what it was. I am no longer a partner in the house."
The next morning he woke as usual when the drums beat the reveille in the fortifications; for the little family, surrounded by barracks, regulated its life by the military calls. The sister had already risen and was feeding the poultry. When she saw Sigismond she came to him in agitation. "It is very strange," she said, "I hear nothing stirring in Monsieur Risler's room.
"Frantz Frantz!" she said; and they remained there side by side, silent and burning with emotion, soothed by Madame Dobson's romance, which reached their ears by snatches through the shrubbery: "Ton amour, c'est ma folie. Helas! je n'en puis guei-i-i-r." Suddenly Risler's tall figure appeared in the doorway. "This way, Chebe, this way. They are in the summerhouse."
Whoever would have suspected such a thing? And to think that in the same year I had those two great pieces of good fortune a partnership in the house of Fromont and married to Sidonie Oh!" At that moment, to the strains of a giddy, languishing waltz, a couple whirled into the small salon. They were Risler's bride and his partner, Georges Fromont.
Suddenly he spied a light in Planus's office, at the end of that long line of deserted rooms. The old cashier was still at work, at one o'clock in the morning! That was really most extraordinary. Risler's first impulse was to retrace his steps.
The cashier was sitting there, motionless, among heaps of papers and great books, which he had been turning over, some of which had fallen to the floor. At the sound of his employer's footsteps he did not even lift his eyes. He had recognized Risler's step.
The cold air blowing from the garden through the little door, which was opened at the time of Risler's swoon, made her shiver, and she mechanically drew the folds of her scarf around her shoulders, her eyes fixed on vacancy, her thoughts wandering.
You would say it was a passable copy of a pretty genre picture. The hostess's attire, even, is too new; she looks more as if she were making a call than as if she were at home. In Risler's eyes everything is superb, beyond reproach; he is preparing to say so as he enters the salon, but, in face of his wife's wrathful glance, he checks himself in terror.
That movement of repulsion was so instinctive, so brutal, that all Risler's emotion changed to indignation. He drew himself up with stern dignity. "I offer you my hand, Sigismond Planus!" he said. "And I refuse to take it," said Planus, rising.
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