all that happened in the street and in the farthest recesses of the
shop by the time he handed the parcel to his customer with a "Here it
is, madame; _nothing else_ to-day?" But the poor fool would have been
ruined without his sister. Sylvie had common-sense and a genius for
trade. She advised her brother in their purchases and would pitilessly
send him to remote parts of France to save a trifle of cost. The
shrewdness which all women more or less possess, not being employed in
the service of her heart, had drifted into that of speculation. A
business to pay for,--that thought was the mainspring which kept the
machine going and gave it an infernal activity.

Rogron was really only head-clerk; he understood nothing of his
business as a whole; self-interest, that great motor of the mind, had
failed in his case to instruct him. He was often aghast when his
sister ordered some article to be sold below cost, foreseeing the end
of its fashion; later he admired her idiotically for her cleverness.
He reasoned neither ill nor well; he was simply incapable of reasoning
at all; but he had the sense to subordinate himself to his sister, and
he did so from a consideration that was outside of the business. "She
is my elder," he said. Perhaps an existence like his, always solitary,
reduced to the satisfaction of mere needs, deprived of money and all
pleasures in youth, may explain to physiologists and thinkers the
clownish expression of the face, the feebleness of mind, the vacant
silliness of the man. His sister had steadily prevented him from
marrying, afraid perhaps to lose her power over him, and seeing only a
source of expense and injury in some woman who would certainly be
younger and undoubtedly less ugly than herself.

Silliness has two ways of comporting itself; it talks, or is silent.
Silent silliness can be borne; but Rogron's silliness was loquacious.