“If it is God’s will that I am not to have it—­”

“You ought also to understand how important it is for your interests to keep secret the other service which I did for you.  At the first appearance of any indiscretion on your part that money, as I told you, will be peremptorily returned to you.”

“Oh! monsieur may be easy about that.”

“Very well; then good-bye to you, my dear,” said la Peyrade, in a friendly tone.

As he turned to leave her, a nasal voice was heard from a window on the staircase.

“Madame Lambert!” cried Cerizet, who, suspecting the colloquy, had gone to the staircase window to make sure of it.  “Madame Lambert!  Monsieur Dutocq has returned; you may come up and see him, if you like.”

Impossible for la Peyrade to prevent the conference, although he knew the secret of that twenty-five thousand francs ran the greatest danger.

“Certainly,” he said to himself as he walked away, “I’m in a run of ill-luck; and I don’t know where it will end.”

In Brigitte’s nature there was such an all-devouring instinct of domination, that it was without regret, and, we may even say, with a sort of secret joy that she saw the disappearance of Madame de Godollo.  That woman, she felt, had a crushing superiority over her; and this, while it had given a higher order to the Thuillier establishment, made her ill at ease.  When therefore the separation took place, which was done, let us here say, on good terms, and under fair and honorable pretexts, Mademoiselle Thuillier breathed more freely.  She felt like those kings long swayed by imperious and necessary ministers, who celebrate within their hearts the day when death delivers them from a master whose services and rival influence they impatiently endured.

Thuillier was not far from having the same sentiment about la Peyrade.  But Madame de Godollo was only the elegance, whereas la Peyrade was the utility of the house they had now simultaneously abandoned; and after the lapse of a few days, a terrible need of Theodose made itself felt in the literary and political existence of his dear, good friend.  The municipal councillor found himself suddenly appointed to draft an important report.  He was unable to decline the task, saddled as he was with the reputation, derived from his pamphlet, of being a man of letters and an able writer; therefore, in presence of the perilous honor conferred upon him by his colleagues of the general Council, he sat down terrified by his solitude and his insufficiency.

In vain did he lock himself into his study, gorge himself with black coffee, mend innumerable pens, and write a score of times at the head of his paper (which he was careful to cut of the exact dimensions as that used by la Peyrade) the solemn words:  “Report to the Members of the Municipal Council of the City of Paris,” followed, on a line by itself, by a magnificent Messieurs—­nothing came of it!  He was fain to issue furious from his study, complaining of the horrible household racket which “cut the thread of his ideas”; though really no greater noise than the closing of a door or the opening of a closet or the moving of a chair had made itself heard.  All this, however, did not help the advancement of the work, which remained, as before—­simply begun.