Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
That was the outlook so vaunted by Planus a melancholy outlook if ever there were one. "And now good-night. Sleep well!" But, as the old cashier was leaving the room, his friend called him back: "Sigismond." "Here!" said Sigismond, and he waited. Risler blushed slightly and moved his lips like a man who is about to speak; then, with a mighty effort, he said: "No, no-nothing. Good-night, old man."
He sat bravely down behind the gratin, looking over the books of account, the certificates of stock in the funds, opening the jewel-cases, estimating with Planus, whose father had been a jeweller, the value of all those diamonds, which he had once so admired on his wife, having no suspicion of their real value.
Fromont Jeune had come in person, six months before, to collect the balance in their hands. Sigismond felt that his strength was going. But he summoned courage to say: "Ah! yes; true. I had forgotten. Sigismond Planus is growing old, that is plain. I am failing, my children, I am failing."
They could tell nothing more than that Risler had gone in the direction of the Orleans road. "After all," Mademoiselle Planus ventured to say, "we are very foolish to torment ourselves about him; perhaps he has simply gone back to the factory." Sigismond shook his head. Ah! if he had said all that he thought! "Return to the house, sister. I will go and see."
At that moment Mademoiselle Planus entered the room with consternation written on her face. "Monsieur Risler has gone!" she exclaimed. "Gone? Why, wasn't the garden-gate locked?" "He must have climbed over the wall. You can see his footprints." They looked at each other, terrified beyond measure. "It was the letter!" thought Planus.
Claire descended into Planus' 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.
In truth, the courage with which he armed himself was more apparent than real. The memory of his wife never left him. What had become of her? What was she doing? He was almost angry with Planus for never mentioning her. That letter, above all things, that letter which he had had the courage not to open, disturbed him. He thought of it continually.
One night, near the end of January, old Sigismond Planus, cashier of the house of Fromont Jeune and Risler Aine, was awakened with a start in his little house at Montrouge by the same teasing voice, the same rattling of chains, followed by that fatal cry: "The notes!" "That is true," thought the worthy man, sitting up in bed; "day after to- morrow will be the last day of the month.
Look, Planus, you can raise money with all this stuff." And he placed on the cashier's desk all the fashionable plunder with which his arms were filled feminine trinkets, trivial aids to coquetry, stamped papers. Then he turned to his wife: "Take off your jewels! Come, be quick."
"Why, you're greatly mistaken, Pere Planus it's at least three months since we have seen your master." The cashier did not pursue the conversation; but a terrible thought took up its abode in his mind, and he turned it over and over all day long. If Georges did not go to the club, where did he pass his evenings? Where did he spend so much money?
Word Of The Day
Others Looking