slightest movements, the most
trivial details of her life, the going and coming of her music-teacher,
the arrival of the fashionable dressmaker in the morning, all the boxes
that were brought to the house, and the laced cap of the employe of the
Magasin du Louvre, whose heavy wagon stopped at the gate with a jingling
of bells, like a diligence drawn by stout horses which were dragging the
house of Fromont to bankruptcy at break-neck speed.

Sigismond counted the packages, weighed them with his eye as they
passed, and gazed inquisitively into Risler's apartments through the
open windows. The carpets that were shaken with a great noise, the
jardinieres that were brought into the sunlight filled with fragile,
unseasonable flowers, rare and expensive, the gorgeous hangings--none of
these things escaped his notice.

The new acquisitions of the household stared him in the face, reminding
him of some request for a large amount.

But the one thing that he studied more carefully than all else was
Risler's countenance.

In his view that woman was in a fair way to change his friend, the
best, the most upright of men, into a shameless villain. There was no
possibility of doubt that Risler knew of his dishonor, and submitted to
it. He was paid to keep quiet.

Certainly there was something monstrous in such a supposition. But it
is the tendency of innocent natures, when they are made acquainted with
evil for the first time, to go at once too far, beyond reason. When he
was once convinced of the treachery of Georges and Sidonie, Risler's
degradation seemed to the cashier less impossible of comprehension. On
what other theory could his indifference, in the face of his partner's
heavy expenditures, be explained?

The excellent Sigismond, in his narrow, stereotyped honesty, could
not understand the delicacy of Risler's heart. At the same time, the
methodical bookkeeper's habit of thought and his clear-sightedness
in business were a thousand leagues from that absent-minded, flighty
character, half-artist, half-inventor. He judged him by himself, having
no conception of the condition of a man with the disease of invention,
absorbed by a fixed idea. Such men are somnambulists. They look, but do
not see, their eyes being turned within.

It was Sigismond's belief that Risler did see. That belief made the
old cashier very unhappy. He began by staring at his friend whenever
he entered the counting-room; then, discouraged by his immovabl