he fumed against the arrangement of which he was the victim,
and felt at times that la Peyrade was a tyrant. Madame Colleville, on
the other hand, had flung herself into an alarming orgy of bonnets,
mantles, and new gowns, requiring the presentation of a mass of bills,
which led not infrequently to scenes in the household which were more or
less stormy. As for Celeste, she had undoubtedly fewer opportunities
to see young Phellion, but she had also fewer chances to rush into
religious controversy; and absence, which is dangerous to none
but inferior attachments, made her think more tenderly and less
theologically of the man of her dreams.

But all these false calculations of Theodose were as nothing in the
balance with another cause for his diminishing influence which was now
to weigh heavily on his situation.

He had assured Thuillier that, after a short delay and the payment
of ten thousand francs, to which his dear, good friend submitted with
tolerable grace, the cross of the Legion of honor would arrive to
realize the secret desire of all his life. Two months had now passed
without a sign of that glorious rattle; and the former sub-director, who
would have felt such joy in parading his red ribbon on the boulevard
of the Madeleine, of which he was now one of the most assiduous
promenaders, had nothing to adorn his buttonhole but the flowers of the
earth, the privilege of everybody,--of which he was far less proud than
Beranger.

La Peyrade had, to be sure, mentioned an unforeseen and inexplicable
difficulty by which all the efforts of the Comtesse du Bruel had been
paralyzed; but Thuillier did not take comfort in the explanation; and
on certain days, when the disappointment became acute, he was very near
saying with Chicaneau in Les Plaideurs, "Return my money."

However, no outbreak happened, for la Peyrade held him in leash by the
famous pamphlet on "Taxation and the Sliding-Scale"; the conclusion of
which had been suspended during the excitement of the moving; for during
that agitating period Thuillier had been unable to give proper care to
the correction of proofs, about which, we may remember, he had reserved
the right of punctilious examination. La Peyrade had now reached a point
when he was forced to see that, in order to restore his influence,
which was daily evaporating, he must strike some grand blow; and it was
precisely this nagging and vexatious fancy about the proofs that the
barrister decided to ta