t child; and when the
carriage gateway had shut with a clang behind him, the tears came into
her eyes in spite of herself.

"How he loves me!" she thought. "He clings to life, poor, dear man,
and yet he would give his life for me."

It did not trouble M. de Bargeton that he must stand up and face his
man on the morrow, and look coolly into the muzzle of a pistol pointed
straight at him; no, only one thing in the business made him feel
uncomfortable, and on the way to M. de Chandour's house he quaked
inwardly.

"What shall I say?" he thought within himself; "Nais really ought to
have told me what to say," and the good gentleman racked his brains to
compose a speech that should not be ridiculous.

But people of M. de Bargeton's stamp, who live perforce in silence
because their capacity is limited and their outlook circumscribed,
often behave at great crises with a ready-made solemnity. If they say
little, it naturally follows that they say little that is foolish;
their extreme lack of confidence leads them to think a good deal over
the remarks that they are obliged to make; and, like Balaam's ass,
they speak marvelously to the point if a miracle loosens their
tongues. So M. de Bargeton bore himself like a man of uncommon sense
and spirit, and justified the opinion of those who held that he was a
philosopher of the school of Pythagoras.

He reached Stanislas' house at nine o'clock, bowed silently to Amelie
before a whole room full of people, and greeted others in turn with
that simple smile of his, which under the present circumstances seemed
profoundly ironical. There followed a great silence, like the pause
before a storm. Chatelet had made his way back again, and now looked
in a very significant fashion from M. de Bargeton to Stanislas, whom
the injured gentleman accosted politely.

Chatelet knew what a visit meant at this time of night, when old M. de
Bargeton was invariably in his bed. It was evidently Nais who had set
the feeble arm in motion. Chatelet was on such a footing in that house
that he had some right to interfere in family concerns. He rose to his
feet and took M. de Bargeton aside, saying, "Do you wish to speak to
Stanislas?"

"Yes," said the old gentleman, well pleased to find a go-between who
perhaps might say his say for him.

"Very well; go into Amelie's bedroom," said the controller of excise,
likewise well pleased at the prospect of a duel which possibly might
make Mme. de Bargeton a widow