“Fouguereau,” he said to the porter, “I am not at home to any one who comes to see me.  If any one calls to see madame, or brings her anything, ring twice.  Bring all letters addressed here to me, no matter for whom they are intended.”

“Thus,” thought he, as he entered his study, which was in the entresol, “I forestall the schemes of this Ferragus.  If he sends some one to ask for me so as to find out if Clemence is alone, at least I shall not be tricked like a fool.”

He stood by the window of his study, which looked upon the street, and then a final scheme, inspired by jealousy, came into his mind.  He resolved to send his head-clerk in his own carriage to the Bourse with a letter to another broker, explaining his sales and purchases and requesting him to do his business for that day.  He postponed his more delicate transactions till the morrow, indifferent to the fall or rise of stocks or the debts of all Europe.  High privilege of love!—­it crushes all things, all interests fall before it:  altar, throne, consols!

At half-past three, just the hour at which the Bourse is in full blast of reports, monthly settlements, premiums, etc., Fouguereau entered the study, quite radiant with his news.

“Monsieur, an old woman has come, but very cautiously; I think she’s a sly one.  She asked for monsieur, and seemed much annoyed when I told her he was out; then she gave me a letter for madame, and here it is.”

Fevered with anxiety, Jules opened the letter; then he dropped into a chair, exhausted.  The letter was mere nonsense throughout, and needed a key.  It was virtually in cipher.

“Go away, Fouguereau.”  The porter left him.  “It is a mystery deeper than the sea below the plummet line!  Ah! it must be love; love only is so sagacious, so inventive as this.  Ah!  I shall kill her.”

At this moment an idea flashed through his brain with such force that he felt almost physically illuminated by it.  In the days of his toilsome poverty before his marriage, Jules had made for himself a true friend.  The extreme delicacy with which he had managed the susceptibilities of a man both poor and modest; the respect with which he had surrounded him; the ingenious cleverness he had employed to nobly compel him to share his opulence without permitting it to make him blush, increased their friendship.  Jacquet continued faithful to Desmarets in spite of his wealth.

Jacquet, a nobly upright man, a toiler, austere in his morals, had slowly made his way in that particular ministry which develops both honesty and knavery at the same time.  A clerk in the ministry of Foreign Affairs, he had charge of the most delicate division of its archives.  Jacquet in that office was like a glow-worm, casting his light upon those secret correspondences, deciphering and classifying despatches.  Ranking higher than a mere bourgeois, his position at the ministry was superior to that of the other subalterns.