If outwardly he still appeared the same impassible, precise, and grave man, he showed himself at home more fretful than an old maid, —­nervous, agitated, and subject to the oddest whims.  After remaining three or four days without opening his lips, he would begin to speak upon all sorts of subjects with amazing volubility.  Instead of watering his wine freely, as formerly, he had begun to drink it pure; and he often took two bottles at his meal, excusing himself upon the necessity that he felt the need of stimulating himself a little after his excessive labors.

Then he would be taken with fits of coarse gayety; and he related singular anecdotes, intermingled with slang expressions, which Maxence alone could understand.

On the morning of the first day of January, 1872, as he sat down to breakfast, he threw upon the table a roll of fifty napoleons, saying to his children,

“Here is your New Year’s gift!  Divide, and buy anything you like.”

And as they were looking at him, staring, stupid with astonishment,

“Well, what of it?” he added with an oath.  “Isn’t it well, once in a while, to scatter the coins a little?”

Those unexpected thousand francs Maxence and Mlle. Gilberte applied to the purchase of a shawl, which their mother had wished for ten years.

She laughed and she cried with pleasure and emotion, the poor woman; and, whilst draping it over her shoulders,

“Well, well, my dear children,” she said:  “your father, after all, is not such a bad man.”

Of which they did not seem very well convinced.  “One thing is sure,” remarked Mlle. Gilberte:  “to permit himself such liberality, papa must be awfully rich.”

M. Favoral was not present at this scene.  The yearly accounts kept him so closely confined to his office, that he remained forty-eight hours without coming home.  A journey which he was compelled to undertake for M. de Thaller consumed the balance of the week.

But on his return he seemed satisfied and quiet.  Without giving up his situation at the Mutual Credit, he was about, he stated, to associate himself with the Messrs. Jottras, M. Saint Pavin of “The Financial Pilot,” and M. Costeclar, to undertake the construction of a foreign railway.

M. Costeclar was at the head of this enterprise, the enormous profits of which were so certain and so clear; that they could be figured in advance.

And whilst on this same subject,

“You were very wrong,” he said to Mlle. Gilberte, “not to make haste and marry Costeclar when he was willing to have you.  You will never find another such match,—­a man who, before ten years, will be a financial power.”

The very name of M. Costeclar had the effect of irritating the young girl.

“I thought you had fallen out?” she said to her father.

“So we had,” he replied with some embarrassment, “because he has never been willing to tell me why he had withdrawn; but people always make up again when they have interests in common.”