e cashier hesitated no longer. Taking up a candle from the table,
he opened the door leading to the parlor, and, standing respectfully
to one side:

"Be kind enough to pass on, sir," said he: "I follow you."

And, at the moment of disappearing himself,

"Continue to dine without me," said he to his guests, with a last
effort at self-control. "I shall soon catch up with you. This will
take but a moment. Do not be uneasy in the least."

They were not uneasy, but surprised, and, above all, shocked at the
manners of M. de Thaller.

"What a brute!" muttered Mme. Desclavettes.

M. Desormeaux, the head clerk at the Department of Justice, was an
old legitimist, much imbued with reactionary ideas.

"Such are our masters," said he with a sneer, "the high barons of
financial feudality. Ah! you are indignant at the arrogance of the
old aristocracy; well, on your knees, by Jupiter! on your face,
rather, before the golden crown on field of gules."

No one replied: every one was trying his best to hear.

In the parlor, between M. Favoral and M. de Thaller, a discussion of
the utmost violence was evidently going on. To seize the meaning
of it was not possible; and yet through the door, the upper panels of
which were of glass, fragments could be heard; and from time to time
such words distinctly reached the ear as dividend, stockholders,
deficit, millions, etc.

"What can it all mean? great heaven!" moaned Mme. Favoral.

Doubtless the two interlocutors, the director and the cashier, had
drawn nearer to the door of communication; for their voices, which
rose more and more, had now become quite distinct.

"It is an infamous trap!" M. Favoral was saying. "I should have been
notified--"

"Come, come," interrupted the other. "Were you not fully warned? did
I ever conceal any thing from you?"

Fear, a fear vague still, and unexplained, was slowly taking
possession of the guests; and they remained motionless, their forks
in suspense, holding their breath.

"Never," M. Favoral was repeating, stamping his foot so violently
that the partition shook,--"never, never!"

"And yet it must be," declared M. de Thaller. "It is the only, the
last resource."

"And suppose I will not!"

"Your will has nothing to do with it now. It is twenty years ago
that you might have willed, or not willed. But listen to me, and
let us reason a little."

Here M. de Thaller dropped his voice; and for some minutes nothing
was heard in th