“Monsieur le baron!” cried Birotteau.

The worthy man thought his own prospects extremely doubtful, and without bowing to Madame de Nucingen, or to de Marsay, he hastily followed the banker.  The baron was already on the staircase, and Birotteau caught him at the bottom just as he was about to enter the counting-room.  As Nucingen opened the door he saw the despairing gesture of the poor creature behind him, who felt himself pushed into a gulf, and said hastily,—­

“Vell, it is all agreet.  See tu Tillet, and arranche it mit him.”

Birotteau, thinking that de Marsay might have some influence with Nucingen, ran back with the rapidity of a swallow, and slipped into the dining-room where he had left the baronne and the young man, and where Delphine was waiting for a cup of cafe a la creme.  He saw that the coffee had been served, but the baronne and the dandy had disappeared.  The footman smiled at the astonishment of the worthy man, who slowly re-descended the stairs.  Cesar rushed to du Tillet’s, and was told that he had gone into the country with Madame Roguin.  He took a cabriolet, and paid the driver well to be taken rapidly to Nogent-sur-Marne.  At Nogent-sur-Marne the porter told him that monsieur and madame had started for Paris.  Birotteau returned home, shattered in mind and body.  When he related his wild-goose chase to his wife and daughter he was amazed to find his Constance, usually perched like a bird of ill omen on the smallest commercial mishap, now giving him the tenderest consolation, and assuring him that everything would turn out well.

The next morning, Birotteau mounted guard as early as seven o’clock before du Tillet’s door.  He begged the porter, slipping ten francs into his hand, to put him in communication with du Tillet’s valet, and obtained from the latter a promise to show him in to his master the moment that du Tillet was visible:  he slid two pieces of gold into the valet’s hand.  By such little sacrifices and great humiliations, common to all courtiers and petitioners, he was able to attain his end.  At half-past eight, just as his former clerk was putting on a dressing-gown, yawning, stretching, and shaking off the cobwebs of sleep, Birotteau came face to face with the tiger, hungry for revenge, whom he now looked upon as his only friend.

“Go on with your dressing,” said Birotteau.

“What do you want, my good Cesar?” said du Tillet.

Cesar stated, with painful trepidation, the answer and requirements of Monsieur de Nucingen to the inattentive ears of du Tillet, who was looking for the bellows and scolding his valet for the clumsy manner in which he had lighted the fire.

The valet listened.  At first Cesar did not notice him; when he did so he stopped short, confused, but resumed what he was saying as du Tillet touched him with the spur exclaiming, “Go on! go on!  I am listening to you.”

The poor man’s shirt was wet; his perspiration turned to ice as du Tillet looked fixedly at him, and he saw the silver-lined pupils of those eyes, streaked with threads of gold, which pierced to his very heart with a diabolical gleam.