Du Bruel [smiling].  “Dear me, I never thought of that.  Poor Rabourdin!  I shall be sorry for him, though.”

Bixiou.  “That shows how much you love him!” [Changing his tone] “Ah, well, I don’t pity him any longer.  He’s rich; his wife gives parties and doesn’t ask me,—­me, who go everywhere!  Well, good-bye, my dear fellow, good-bye, and don’t owe me a grudge!” [He goes out through the clerks’ office.] “Adieu, gentlemen; didn’t I tell you yesterday that a man who has nothing but virtues and talents will always be poor, even though he has a pretty wife?”

Henry.  “You are so rich, you!”

Bixiou.  “Not bad, my Cincinnatus!  But you’ll give me that dinner at the Rocher de Cancale.”

Poiret.  “It is absolutely impossible for me to understand Monsieur Bixiou.”

Phellion [with an elegaic air].  “Monsieur Rabourdin so seldom reads the newspapers that it might perhaps be serviceable to deprive ourselves momentarily by taking them in to him.” [Fleury hands over his paper, Vimeux the office sheet, and Phellion departs with them.]

At that moment des Lupeaulx, coming leisurely downstairs to breakfast with the minister, was asking himself whether, before playing a trump card for the husband, it might not be prudent to probe the wife’s heart and make sure of a reward for his devotion.  He was feeling about for the small amount of heart that he possessed, when, at a turn of the staircase, he encountered his lawyer, who said to him, smiling, “Just a word, Monseigneur,” in the tone of familiarity assumed by men who know they are indispensable.

“What is it, my dear Desroches?” exclaimed the politician.  “Has anything happened?”

“I have come to tell you that all your notes and debts have been brought up by Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name of a certain Samanon.”

“Men whom I helped to make their millions!”

“Listen,” whispered the lawyer.  “Gigonnet (really named Bidault) is the uncle of Saillard, your cashier; and Saillard is father-in-law to a certain Baudoyer, who thinks he has a right to the vacant place in your ministry.  Don’t you think I have done right to come and tell you?”

“Thank you,” said des Lupeaulx, nodding to the lawyer with a shrewd look.

“One stroke of your pen will buy them off,” said Desroches, leaving him.

“What an immense sacrifice!” muttered des Lupeaulx.  “It would be impossible to explain it to a woman,” thought he.  “Is Celestine worth more than the clearing off of my debts?—­that is the question.  I’ll go and see her this morning.”

So the beautiful Madame Rabourdin was to be, within an hour, the arbiter of her husband’s fate, and no power on earth could warn her of the importance of her replies, or give her the least hint to guard her conduct and compose her voice.  Moreover, in addition to her mischances, she believed herself certain of success, never dreaming that Rabourdin was undermined in all directions by the secret sapping of the mollusks.