repeated the words as she went out, but neither moved.

At last Alphonse felt hungry, went to the table, poured out a
glass of wine and began to eat his cutlet. But as he stood there
eating, with his glass in his hand, and looked round the dear old
office where they had spent so many pleasant hours, and then
thought that they were to lose all this and imbitter their lives
for a whim, a sudden burst of passion, the whole situation
appeared to him so preposterous that he almost burst out laughing.

"Look here, Charles," he said, in the half-earnest, half-joking
tone which always used to make Charles laugh, "it will really be
too absurd to advertise: 'According to an amicable agreement, from
such and such a date the firm of--'"

"I have been thinking," interrupted Charles, quietly, "that we
will put: 'According to MUTUAL agreement.'"

Alphonse laughed no more; he put down his glass, and the cutlet
tasted bitter in his mouth.

He understood that friendship was dead between them, why or
wherefore he could not tell; but he thought that Charles was hard
and unjust to him. He was now stiffer and colder than the other.

They worked together until the business of dissolution was
finished; then they parted.

A considerable time passed, and the two quondam friends worked
each in his own quarter in the great Paris. They met at the