who, some
day or other, will be fatally dragged into the mud by some lost
creature."

Such discussions were not calculated to make the relations between
father and son more cordial. Several times M. Favoral had
insinuated, that, since Maxence lodged away from home, he might as
well dine away too. And he would evidently have notified him to
do so, had he not been prevented by a remnant of human respect,
and the fear of gossip.

On the other hand, the bitter regret of having, perhaps, spoiled
his life, the uncertainty of the future, the penury of the moment,
all the unsatisfied desires of youth, kept Maxence in a state of
perpetual irritation.

The excellent Mme. Favoral exhausted all her arguments to quiet him.

"Your father is harsh for us," she said; "but is he less harsh for
himself? He forgives nothing; but he has never needed to be
forgiven himself. He does not understand youth, but he has never
been young himself; and at twenty he was as grave and as cold as
you see him now. How could he know what pleasure is?--he to whom
the idea has never come to take an hour's enjoyment."

"Have I, then, been guilty of any crimes, to be thus treated by my
father?" exclaimed Maxence, flushed with anger. "Our existence here
is an unheard-of thing. You, poor, dear mother!--you have never
had the free disposition of a five-franc-piece. Gilberte spends
her days turning her dresses, after having had them dyed. I am
driven to a petty clerkship. And my father has fifty thousand
francs a year!"

Such, indeed, was the figure at which the most moderate estimated
M. Favoral's fortune. M. Chapelain, who was supposed to be well
informed, insinuated freely that his friend Vincent, besides being
the cashier of the Mutual Credit, must also be one of its principal
stock-holders. Now, judging from the dividend which had just been
paid, the Mutual Credit must, since the war, have realized enormous
profits. All its enterprises were successful; and it was on the
point of negotiating a foreign loan which would infallibly fill its
exchequer to overflowing.

M. Favoral, moreover, defended himself feebly from these accusations
of concealed opulence. When M. Desormeaux told him, "Come, now,
between us, candidly, how many millions have you?" he had such a
strange way of affirming that people were very much mistaken, that
his friends' convictions became only the more settled. And, as
soon as they had a few thousand francs of saving