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Soon after, while standing about the door of the Hotel du Commerce, at the end of the Rue des Deux-Ecus, about midnight, he heard, in the far distance of the Rue de Grenelle, a vaudeville chorus sung by Gaudissart, with a cane accompaniment significantly rapped upon the pavement. "Monsieur," said Anselme, suddenly appearing from the doorway, "two words?"
Babylas held the mirror, and Anselme adjusted the Seneschal's wig, whilst Tressan himself twisted his black mustachios how they kept their colour was a mystery to his acquaintance and combed the tuft of beard that sprouted from one of his several chins. He took a last look at his reflection, rehearsed a smile, and bade Anselme introduce his visitor.
"Dear Anselme," she said, crossing herself, "dear son!" She took his head in her hands, kissed him on the forehead, pressed him to her heart, and seemed for a moment beside herself. "Cesarine is thine! My daughter will be happy at last. She can leave that shop where she is killing herself " "For love?" said Popinot. "Yes," answered the mother, smiling.
The word was uttered in a tone so full of meaning, that the chaste and pure young girl inclined her head to her dear Anselme, who laid an eager and respectful kiss upon her brow, so noble was her gesture and action. "Papa, all is well," she said to Cesar with a little air of confidence. "Be good and sweet; talk to us, put away that sad look."
Anselme had engaged all Cesar's workmen, and often slept himself on the premises. His fancy pictured Cesarine sitting on the cases, and hovering over the shipments; her name seemed printed on the bills; and as he worked with his coat off, and his shirt-sleeves rolled up, courageously nailing up the cases himself, in default of the necessary clerks, he said in his heart, "She shall be mine!"
Both alike were descended from Anselme de Ribaumont, renowned in the first Crusade, and from the brave Picard who had received the pearls; but, in the miserable anarchy of Charles VI.'s reign, the elder brother had been on the Burgundian side like most of the other nobles of Picardy and had thus been brought into the English camp, where, regarding Henry V. as lawfully appointed to the succession, and much admiring him and his brother Nedford, he had become an ardent supporter of the English claim.
"The office-boy, to whom I always give it in charge before leaving the bank," said Prosper. "This boy," said M. Fauvel, "sleeps in the outer room on a sofa-bedstead, which he unfolds at night, and folds up in the morning." "Is he here now?" inquired the commissary. "Yes, monsieur," answered the banker. He opened the door and called: "Anselme!"
"I was sure of it!" said Popinot, expressing his hatred by the tones of his voice. "Anselme, your future, your happiness, demand this confidence; but you must let it die in your heart, just as it is dead in mine and in Cesar's. Do you not remember how my husband scolded us for an error in the accounts?
Popinot sent the cheque at once to the Bank, and went up to speak to Madame Birotteau; she was not in the counting-room, and had doubtless gone to her chamber. Anselme and Constance lived like mother-in-law and son-in-law when people in that relation suit each other; he therefore rushed up to Madame Cesar's appartement with the natural eagerness of a lover on the threshold of his happiness.
A petition for reinstatement with corroborative documents was at once deposited by Derville at the office of the procureur-general of the Cour Royale. During the month required for the legal formalities and for the publication of the banns of marriage between Cesarine and Anselme, Birotteau was a prey to feverish agitation. He was restless.
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