“Delighted,” said du Tillet.  “We shall want money for the paper.”

“The money will be found,” said Raoul.

“The devil is with these women!” exclaimed du Tillet, still unconvinced by the words of Raoul, whom he had nicknamed Charnathan.

“What are you talking about?” said Raoul.

“My sister-in-law is there with my wife, and they are hatching something together.  You seem in high favor with the Countess; she is bowing to you right across the house.”

“Look,” said Mme. du Tillet to her sister, “they told us wrong.  See how my husband fawns on M. Nathan, and it is he who they declared was trying to get him put in prison!”

“And men call us slanderers!” cried the Countess.  “I will give him a warning.”

She rose, took the arm of Vandenesse, who was waiting in the passage, and returned jubilant to her box; by and by she left the Opera and ordered her carriage for the next morning before eight o’clock.

The next morning, by half-past eight, Marie had driven to the quai Conti, stopping at the hotel du Mail on her way.  The carriage could not enter the narrow rue de Nevers; but as Schmucke lived in a house at the corner of the quai she was not obliged to walk up its muddy pavement, but could jump from the step of her carriage to the broken step of the dismal old house, mended like porter’s crockery, with iron rivets, and bulging out over the street in a way that was quite alarming to pedestrians.  The old chapel-master lived on the fourth floor, and enjoyed a fine view of the Seine from the pont Neuf to the heights of Chaillot.

The good soul was so surprised when the countess’s footman announced the visit of his former scholar that in his stupefaction he let her enter without going down to receive her.  Never did the countess suspect or imagine such an existence as that which suddenly revealed itself to her eyes, though she had long known Schmucke’s contempt for dress, and the little interest he held in the affairs of this world.  But who could have believed in such complete indifference, in the utter laisser-aller of such a life?  Schmucke was a musical Diogenes, and he felt no shame whatever in his untidiness; in fact, he was so accustomed to it that he would probably have denied its existence.  The incessant smoking of a stout German pipe had spread upon the ceiling and over a wretched wall-paper, scratched and defaced by the cat, a yellowish tinge.  The cat, a magnificently long-furred, fluffy animal, the envy of all portresses, presided there like the mistress of the house, grave and sedate, and without anxieties.  On the top of an excellent Viennese piano he sat majestically, and cast upon the countess, as she entered, that coldly gracious look which a woman, surprised by the beauty of another woman, might have given.  He did not move, and merely waved the two silver threads of his right whisker as he turned his golden eyes on Schmucke.