ou seen his last paperweight? He'll end by sculpturing
sleeve-links. There's a fellow who has missed his mark! To think that he
prided himself on being vigorous!'

But Mathilde was already afoot, taking leave of Christine with a curt
little inclination of the head, affecting social familiarity with
Henriette, and carrying off her husband, who helped her on with her
cloak in the ante-room, humble and terrified at the severe glance she
gave him, for she had an account to settle.

Then, the door having closed behind them, Sandoz, beside himself,
cried out: 'That's the end! The journalist was bound to call the others
abortions--yes, the journalist who, after patching up articles, has
fallen to trading upon public credulity! Ah! luckily there's Mathilde
the Avengeress!'

Of the guests Christine and Claude alone were left. The latter, since
the drawing-room had been growing empty, had remained ensconced in the
depths of an arm-chair, no longer speaking, but overcome by that species
of magnetic slumber which stiffened him, and fixed his eyes on something
far away beyond the walls. He protruded his face, a convulsive kind
of attention seemed to carry it forward; he certainly beheld something
invisible, and heard a summons in the silence.

Christine having risen in her turn, and apologised for being the last
to leave, Henriette took hold of her hands, repeated how fond she was of
her, begged her to come and see her frequently, and to dispose of her
in all things as she would with a sister. But Claude's sorrowful wife,
looking so sadly charming in her black dress, shook her head with a pale
smile.

'Come,' said Sandoz in her ear, after giving a glance at Claude, 'you
mustn't distress yourself like that. He has talked a great deal, he has
been gayer this evening. He's all right.'

But in a terrified voice she answered:

'No, no; look at his eyes--I shall tremble as long as he has his eyes
like that. You have done all you could, thanks. What you haven't done no
one will do. Ah! how I suffer at being unable to hope, at being unable
to do anything!'

Then in a loud tone she asked:

'Are you coming, Claude?'

She had to repeat her question twice, for at first he did not hear her;
he ended by starting, however, and rose to his feet, saying, as if he
had answered the summons from the horizon afar off:

'Yes, I'm coming, I'm coming.'

When Sandoz and his wife at last found themselves alone in the
drawing-room, where the a