.
When Fagerolles, on his aide, succeeded in obtaining two glasses of
chartreuse for himself and Jory, he began to talk to Sandoz, whom he
treated with a certain amount of deference, divining that the novelist
might become a power. And Jory thereupon appropriated Claude, who had
again become mournful and silent.

'You know, my dear fellow,' said the journalist, 'I didn't send you any
announcement of my marriage. On account of our position we managed it on
the quiet without inviting any guests. All the same, I should have liked
to let you know. You will excuse me, won't you?'

He showed himself expansive, gave particulars, full of the happiness of
life, and egotistically delighted to feel fat and victorious in front of
that poor vanquished fellow. He succeeded with everything, he said.
He had given up leader-writing, feeling the necessity of settling down
seriously, and he had risen to the editorship of a prominent art review,
on which, so it was asserted, he made thirty thousand francs a year,
without mentioning certain profits realised by shady trafficking in
the sale of art collections. The middle-class rapacity which he had
inherited from his mother, the hereditary passion for profit which had
secretly impelled him to embark in petty speculations as soon as he had
gained a few coppers, now openly displayed itself, and ended by making
him a terrible customer, who bled all the artists and amateurs who came
under his clutches.

It was amidst this good luck of his that Mathilde, now all-powerful,
had brought him to the point of begging her, with tears in his eyes, to
become his wife, a request which she had proudly refused during six long
months.

'When folks are destined to live together,' he continued, 'the best
course is to set everything square. You experienced it yourself, my
dear fellow; you know something about it, eh? And if I told you that she
wouldn't consent at first--yes, it's a fact--for fear of being misjudged
and of doing me harm. Oh! she has such grandeur, such delicacy of mind!
No, nobody can have an idea of that woman's qualities. Devoted, taking
all possible care of one, economical, and acute, too, and such a good
adviser! Ah! it was a lucky chance that I met her! I no longer do
anything without consulting her; I let her do as she likes; she manages
everything, upon my word.'

The truth was that Mathilde had finished by reducing him to the
frightened obedience of a little boy. The once dissolute