"Work! Ah yes, to be sure, work!" he stammered at last. "Always plenty
of work."

He began to pull himself together, straightening up his bent figure and
passing his hand, as was his wont, over his scant gray hair, of which a
few locks strayed behind his ears.

"At what are you working as late as this?" asked Mme du Joncquoy. "I
thought you were at the financial minister's reception?"

But the countess intervened with:

"My father had to study the question of a projected law."

"Yes, a projected law," he said; "exactly so, a projected law. I shut
myself up for that reason. It refers to work in factories, and I was
anxious for a proper observance of the Lord's day of rest. It is really
shameful that the government is unwilling to act with vigor in the
matter. Churches are growing empty; we are running headlong to ruin."

Vandeuvres had exchanged glances with Fauchery. They both happened to
be behind the marquis, and they were scanning him suspiciously. When
Vandeuvres found an opportunity to take him aside and to speak to him
about the good-looking creature he was in the habit of taking down into
the country, the old man affected extreme surprise. Perhaps someone
had seen him with the Baroness Decker, at whose house at Viroflay he
sometimes spent a day or so. Vandeuvres's sole vengeance was an abrupt
question: