but he answered, speaking aloud:

"Well, what?--Ramel is a saint, a hero!--But I am no saint. I am a man
and I will live!"

Somewhat angered, he took the prospectus that Molina had left him and
rereading it again and again, he relapsed into a sitting posture and
with haggard eyes scanned the loud-swelling lines of that commercial
announcement, seeking therein some pretext for accepting. For he would
accept, that was done. Nothing more was to be said, his conscience
yielded. He was inclined to laugh.

"Still another victim caught and floored by Molina the _Tumbler!_"

He remained there, terrified at the prospect of the quasi-association he
had determined on and by his complicity with a jobber of questionable
business.

With his eye fixed upon this solicitation for capital, wherein were the
words which would formerly have repelled him: _joint stock company_,
_capital stock_, _public subscription_, _subscription certificate_, and at
the head of which he was about to inscribe his name as one of the
directors, at the foot of a capitulation, as it were, Sulpice had not
seen, standing in the doorway of his half-lighted study, a woman in
travelling costume, who stopped for a moment to look at the unfortunate,
dejected man within the shade of the lamp which made him look more bald
than he was, then advanced gently toward him, coughing slightly--for she
did not dare to call him by his name or touch him with her gloved
hand--to warn him that she was there.

Vaudrey turned round abruptly, instinctively pushing aside Molina's
prospectus, as if he already felt some shame in holding it in his hands.

He flushed as he recognized Adrienne.

The young woman's reserved attitude showed absolute firmness. She came
to say adieu, she was about to leave.

He had not even the energy to keep her. He was afraid of an unbending
reply that would have been an outrage.

"Do you intend to become associated with Molina?" Adrienne asked in a
clear voice, as she looked at Sulpice, who had risen.

"What! Molina?" he stammered.

"Yes, oh! he understands business. On leaving, he called on me. He
thought that I had still sufficient influence over you to urge you, as
he says, to make your fortune. He told me that you were in want of
money, and after having been sharp enough to try the husband, he offered
me, as you might give a commission to a courtesan, I do not know what
emerald ornament, if I would advise you to accept his proposals!--That
g