“Well, then, I must tell you plainly that the wife of the head of a bureau is out of place here; a director’s wife is not.”

“That point need not be considered,” said the minister, “your husband is indispensable to the administration; he is already appointed.”

“Is that a veritable fact?”

“Would you like to see the papers in my study?  They are already drawn up.”

“Then,” she said, pausing in a corner where she was alone with the minister, whose eager attentions were now very marked, “let me tell you that I can make you a return.”

She was on the point of revealing her husband’s plan, when des Lupeaulx, who had glided noiselessly up to them, uttered an angry sound, which meant that he did not wish to appear to have overheard what, in fact, he had been listening to.  The minister gave an ill-tempered look at the old beau, who, impatient to win his reward, had hurried, beyond all precedent, the preliminary work of the appointment.  He had carried the papers to his Excellency that evening, and desired to take himself, on the morrow, the news of the appointment to her whom he was now endeavoring to exhibit as his mistress.  Just then the minister’s valet approached des Lupeaulx in a mysterious manner, and told him that his own servant wished him to deliver to him at once a letter of the utmost importance.

The general-secretary went up to a lamp and read a note thus worded:—­

   Contrary to my custom, I am waiting in your ante-chamber to see
   you; you have not a moment to lose if you wish to come to terms
   with

Your obedient servant,
Gobseck.

The secretary shuddered when he saw the signature, which we regret we cannot give in fac-simile, for it would be valuable to those who like to guess character from what may be called the physiognomy of signature.  If ever a hieroglyphic sign expressed an animal, it was assuredly this written name, in which the first and the final letter approached each other like the voracious jaws of a shark,—­insatiable, always open, seeking whom to devour, both strong and weak.  As for the wording of the note, the spirit of usury alone could have inspired a sentence so imperative, so insolently curt and cruel, which said all and revealed nothing.  Those who had never heard of Gobseck would have felt, on reading words which compelled him to whom they were addressed to obey, yet gave no order, the presence of the implacable money-lender of the rue des Gres.  Like a dog called to heel by the huntsman, des Lupeaulx left his present quest and went immediately to his own rooms, thinking of his hazardous position.  Imagine a general to whom an aide-de-camp rides up and says:  “The enemy with thirty thousand fresh troops is attacking on our right flank.”