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Shadows passed and repassed behind the fluttering veil of the curtains; the orchestra seemed to follow the movements of those stealthy apparitions with the rising and falling of its muffled notes. The guests were dancing. Risler let his eyes rest for a moment on that phantasmagoria of the ball, and fancied that he recognized Sidonie's shadow in a small room adjoining the salon.

Risler supposed that some one had told Frantz of the disaster that had befallen him, and he too avoided all allusion to the subject in his letters. "Oh! when I can send for him to come home!" That was his dream, his sole ambition: to restore the factory and recall his brother.

Sigismond was facing him, with both hands on his desk, as if to emphasize and drive home what he was about to say in reply. "Why? Because you have ruined the house; because in a few hours a messenger from the Bank will come and stand where you are, to collect a hundred thousand francs; and because, thanks to you, I haven't a sou in the cash-box that's the reason why!" Risler was stupefied.

Knowing, or rather believing that she knew her friend's story from beginning to end, she understood the lowering wrath of Frantz, a former lover furious at finding his place filled, and the anxiety of Georges, due to the appearance of a rival; and she encouraged one with a glance, consoled the other with a smile, admired Sidonie's tranquil demeanor, and reserved all her contempt for that abominable Risler, the vulgar, uncivilized tyrant.

It was a genuine relief for poor Madame Chebe when her husband took an omnibus at the office to go and hunt up Delobelle whose hours for lounging were always at his disposal and pour into his bosom all his rancor against his son-in-law and his daughter. The illustrious Delobelle also bore Risler a grudge, and freely said of him: "He is a dastard."

The seashore bathing resorts! She could not think of them; Risler could not leave Paris. How about buying a country house? They had not the means. To be sure, there was the lover, who would have asked nothing better than to gratify this latest whim; but a country house cannot be concealed like a bracelet or a shawl. The husband must be induced to accept it.

Did she not hear the violins of her ball, which reached their ears in the intervals of silence, like bursts of savage irony, with the heavy thud of the dancers shaking the floors? An iron hand, falling upon her, aroused her abruptly from her torpor. Risler had taken her by the arm, and, leading her before his partner's wife, he said: "Down on your knees!"

Without fully realizing it, Risler felt more comfortable and warmer there than in his own apartment; for on certain days those attractive rooms, where the doors were forever being thrown open for hurried exits or returns, gave him the impression of a hall without doors or windows, open to the four winds. His rooms were a camping-ground; this was a home.

"No, Risler, my friend. No, not you." "My wife, was it not? Oh! it is horrible! This is how I have paid my debt of gratitude to you. But you, Madame Chorche, you could not have believed that I was a party to this infamy?" "No, my friend, no; be calm. I know that you are the most honorable man on earth."

Did she not hear the violins of her ball, which reached their ears in the intervals of silence, like bursts of savage irony, with the heavy thud of the dancers shaking the floors? An iron hand, falling upon her, aroused her abruptly from her torpor. Risler had taken her by the arm, and, leading her before his partner's wife, he said: "Down on your knees!"