In everybody's opinion Risler was a dishonored husband. Two assistants
in the printing-room--faithful patrons of the Folies Dramatiques--
declared that they had seen Madame Risler several times at their theatre,
accompanied by some escort who kept out of sight at the rear of the box.
Pere Achille, too, told of amazing things. That Sidonie had a lover,
that she had several lovers, in fact, no one entertained a doubt. But no
one had as yet thought of Fromont jeune.

And yet she showed no prudence whatever in her relations with him. On
the contrary, she seemed to make a parade of them; it may be that that
was what saved them. How many times she accosted him boldly on the steps
to agree upon a rendezvous for the evening! How many times she had
amused herself in making him shudder by looking into his eyes before
every one! When the first confusion had passed, Georges was grateful to
her for these exhibitions of audacity, which he attributed to the
intensity of her passion. He was mistaken.

What she would have liked, although she did not admit it to herself,
would have been to have Claire see them, to have her draw aside the
curtain at her window, to have her conceive a suspicion of what was
passing. She needed that in order to be perfectly happy: that her rival
should be unhappy. But her wish was ungratified; Claire Fromont noticed
nothing and lived, as did Risler, in imperturbable serenity.

Only Sigismond, the old cashier, was really ill at ease. And yet he was
not thinking of Sidonie when, with his pen behind his ear, he paused a
moment in his work and gazed fixedly through his grating at the drenched
soil of the little garden. He was thinking solely of his master, of
Monsieur "Chorche," who was drawing a great deal of money now for his
current expenses and sowing confusion in all his books. Every time it