lend me," said Wenceslas, to cut short this lawyer-like examination.

He had made a division of the ten thousand-franc notes, half for
Hortense and half for himself, for he had five thousand francs' worth
of debts of which Hortense knew nothing. He owed money to his foreman
and his workmen.

"Now your anxieties are relieved," said he, kissing his wife. "I am
going to work to-morrow morning. So I am going to bed this minute to
get up early, by your leave, my pet."

The suspicion that had dawned in Hortense's mind vanished; she was
miles away from the truth. Madame Marneffe! She had never thought of
her. Her fear for her Wenceslas was that he should fall in with street
prostitutes. The names of Bixiou and Leon de Lora, two artists noted
for their wild dissipations, had alarmed her.

Next morning she saw Wenceslas go out at nine o'clock, and was quite
reassured.

"Now he is at work again," said she to herself, as she proceeded to
dress her boy. "I see he is quite in the vein! Well, well, if we
cannot have the glory of Michael Angelo, we may have that of Benvenuto
Cellini!"

Lulled by her own hopes, Hortense believed in a happy future; and she
was chattering to her son of twenty months in the language of
onomatopoeia that amuses babes when, at about eleven o'clock, the
cook, who had not seen Wenceslas go out, showed in Stidmann.