As it happened Mathieu Froment gradually became indispensable at the works.  The young master, Alexandre Beauchene, passed through an anxious crisis.  The dowry which his father had been forced to draw from his coffers in order to get Seraphine married, and other large expenses which had been occasioned by the girl’s rebellious and perverse conduct, had left but little working capital in the business.  Then, too, on the morrow of Leon Beauchene’s death it was found that, with the carelessness often evinced in such matters, he had neglected to leave a will; so that Seraphine eagerly opposed her brother’s interests, demanding her personal share of the inheritance, and even suggesting the sale of the works.  The property had narrowly escaped being cut up, annihilated.  And Alexandre Beauchene still shivered with terror and anger at the recollection of that time, amidst all his delight at having at last rid himself of his sister by paying her in money the liberally estimated value of her share.  It was in order to fill up the void thus created in his finances that he had espoused the half-million represented by Constance—­an ugly creature, as he himself bitterly acknowledged, coarse male as he was.  Truth to tell, she was so thin, so scraggy, that before consenting to make her his wife he had often called her “that bag of bones.”  But, on the other hand, thanks to his marriage with her, all his losses were made good in five or six years’ time; the business of the works even doubled, and great prosperity set in.  And Mathieu, having become a most active and necessary coadjutor, ended by taking the post of chief designer, at a salary of four thousand two hundred francs per annum.

Morange, the chief accountant, whose office was near Mathieu’s, thrust his head through the doorway as soon as he heard the young man installing himself at his drawing-table.  “I say, my dear Froment,” he exclaimed, “don’t forget that you are to take dejeuner with us.”

“Yes, yes, my good Morange, it’s understood.  I will look in for you at twelve o’clock.”

Then Mathieu very carefully scrutinized a wash drawing of a very simple but powerful steam thresher, an invention of his own, on which he had been working for some time past, and which a big landowner of Beauce, M. Firon-Badinier, was to examine during the afternoon.

The door of the master’s private room was suddenly thrown wide open and Beauchene appeared—­tall, with a ruddy face, a narrow brow, and big brown, protruding eyes.  He had a rather large nose, thick lips, and a full black beard, on which he bestowed great care, as he likewise did on his hair, which was carefully combed over his head in order to conceal the serious baldness that was already coming upon him, although he was scarcely two-and-thirty.  Frock-coated the first thing in the morning, he was already smoking a big cigar; and his loud voice, his peals of gayety, his bustling ways, all betokened an egotist and good liver still in his prime, a man for whom money—­capital increased and increased by the labor of others—­was the one only sovereign power.