It is the first time in twenty-six years.”
The appearance of Maxence at this moment prevented her from going on. M. Favoral was about to administer a sound reprimand to his son, when dinner was announced.
“Come,” exclaimed M. Chapelain, the old lawyer, the conciliating man par excellence—“come, let us to the table.”
They sat down. But Mme. Favoral had scarcely helped the soup, when the bell rang violently. Almost at the same moment the servant appeared, and announced:
“The Baron de Thaller!”
More pale than his napkin, the cashier stood up. “The manager,” he stammered, “the director of the Mutual Credit Society.”
II
Close upon the heels of the servant M. de Thaller came.
Tall, thin, stiff, he had a very small head, a flat face, pointed nose, and long reddish whiskers, slightly shaded with silvery threads, falling half-way down his chest. Dressed in the latest style, he wore a loose overcoat of rough material, pantaloons that spread nearly to the tip of his boots, a wide shirt-collar turned over a light cravat, on the bow of which shone a large diamond, and a tall hat with rolled brims. With a blinking glance, he made a rapid estimate of the dining-room, the shabby furniture, and the guests seated around the table. Then, without even condescending to touch his hat, with his large hand tightly fitted into a lavender glove, in a brief and imperious tone, and with a slight accent which he affirmed was the Alsatian accent:
“I must speak with you, Vincent,” said he to his cashier, “alone and at once.”
M. Favoral made visible efforts to conceal his anxiety. “You see,” he commenced, “we are dining with a few friends, and—”
“Do you wish me to speak in presence of everybody?” interrupted harshly the manager of the Mutual Credit.
The cashier hesitated no longer. Taking up a candle from the table, he opened the door leading to the parlor, and, standing respectfully to one side:
“Be kind enough to pass on, sir,” said he: “I follow you.”
And, at the moment of disappearing himself,
“Continue to dine without me,” said he to his guests, with a last effort at self-control. “I shall soon catch up with you. This will take but a moment. Do not be uneasy in the least.”
They were not uneasy, but surprised, and, above all, shocked at the manners of M. de Thaller.
“What a brute!” muttered Mme. Desclavettes.
M. Desormeaux, the head clerk at the Department of Justice, was an old legitimist, much imbued with reactionary ideas.
“Such are our masters,” said he with a sneer, “the high barons of financial feudality. Ah! you are indignant at the arrogance of the old aristocracy; well, on your knees, by Jupiter! on your face, rather, before the golden crown on field of gules.”
No one replied: every one was trying his best to hear.
In the parlor, between M. Favoral and M. de Thaller, a discussion of the utmost violence was evidently going on. To seize the meaning of it was not possible; and yet through the door, the upper panels of which were of glass, fragments could be heard; and from time to time such words distinctly reached the ear as dividend, stockholders, deficit, millions, etc.
“What can it all mean? great heaven!” moaned Mme. Favoral.
Doubtless the two interlocutors, the director and the cashier, had drawn nearer to the door of communication; for their voices, which rose more and more, had now become quite distinct.
“It is an infamous trap!” M. Favoral was saying. “I should have been notified—”
“Come, come,” interrupted the other. “Were you not fully warned? did I ever conceal any thing from you?”
Fear, a fear vague still, and unexplained, was slowly taking possession of the guests; and they remained motionless, their forks in suspense, holding their breath.
“Never,” M. Favoral was repeating, stamping his foot so violently that the partition shook—“never, never!”
“And yet it must be,” declared M. de Thaller. “It is the only, the last resource.”
“And suppose I will not!”
“Your will has nothing to do with it now. It is twenty years ago that you might have willed, or not willed. But listen to me, and let us reason a little.”
Here M. de Thaller dropped his voice; and for some minutes nothing was heard in the dining-room, except confused words, and incomprehensible exclamations, until suddenly,
“That is ruin,” he resumed in a furious tone: “it is bankruptcy on the last of the month.”
“Sir,” the cashier was replying—“sir!”
“You are a forger, M. Vincent Favoral; you are a thief!”
Maxence leaped from his seat.
“I shall not permit my father to be thus insulted in his own house,” he exclaimed.
“Maxence,” begged Mme. Favoral, “my son!”
The old lawyer, M. Chapelain, held him by the arm; but he struggled hard, and was about to burst into the parlor, when the door opened, and the director of the Mutual Credit stepped out.
With a coolness quite remarkable after such a scene, he advanced towards Mlle. Gilberte, and, in a tone of offensive protection,
“Your father is a wretch, mademoiselle,” he said; “and my duty should be to surrender him at once into the hands of justice. On account of your worthy mother, however, of your father himself, above all, on your own account, mademoiselle, I shall forbear doing so. But let him fly, let him disappear, and never more be heard from.”
He drew from his pocket a roll of bank-notes, and, throwing them upon the table,
“Hand him this,” he added. “Let him leave this very night. The police may have been notified. There is a train for Brussels at five minutes past eleven.”
And, having bowed, he withdrew, no one addressing him a single word, so great was the astonishment of all the guests of this house, heretofore so peaceful.
Overcome with stupor, Maxence had dropped upon his chair. Mlle. Gilberte alone retained some presence of mind.
“It is a shame,” she exclaimed, “for us to give up thus! That man is an impostor, a wretch; he lies! Father, father!”
M. Favoral had not waited to be called, and was standing up against the parlor-door, pale as death, and yet calm.
“Why attempt any explanations?” he said. “The money is gone; and appearances are against me.”
His wife had drawn near to him, and taken his hand. “The misfortune is immense,” she said, “but not irreparable. We will sell everything we have.”
“Have you not friends? Are we not here,” insisted the others—M. Desclavettes, M. Desormeaux, and M. Chapelain.
Gently he pushed his wife aside, and coldly.
“All we had,” he said, “would be as a grain of sand in an ocean. But we have no longer anything; we are ruined.”
“Ruined!” exclaimed M. Desormeaux—“ruined! And where are the forty-five thousand francs I placed into your hands?”
He made no reply.
“And our hundred and twenty thousand francs?”