The issue of shares was disastrous.  The great banks remained hostile, and capitalists were mistrustful.  Herzog landed a few million francs.  Doorkeepers and cooks brought him their savings.  He covered expenses.  But it was no use advertising and puffing in the newspapers, as a word had gone forth which paralyzed the speculation.  Ugly rumors were afloat.  Herzog’s German origin was made use of by the bankers, who whispered that the aim of the Universal Credit Company was exclusively political.  It was to establish branch banks in every part of the world to further the interests of German industry.  Further, at a given moment, Germany might have need of a loan in case of war, and the Universal Credit Company would be there to supply the necessary aid to the great military nation.

Herzog was not a man to be put down without resisting, and he made supreme efforts to float his undertaking.  He caused a number of unissued shares to be sold on ’Change, and had them bought up by his own men, thus creating a fictitious interest in the company.  In a few days the shares rose and were at a premium, simply through the jobbery to which Herzog lent himself.

Panine was little disposed to seek for explanations, and, besides, had such unbounded faith in his partner that he suspected nothing.  He remained in perfect tranquillity.  He had increased his expenditure, and his household was on a royal footing.  Micheline’s sweetness emboldened him; he no longer took the trouble of dissimulating, and treated his young wife with perfect indifference.

Jeanne and Serge met every day at the little house in the Avenue Maillot.  Cayrol was too much engaged with the new anxieties which Herzog caused him, to look after his wife, and left her quite free to amuse herself.  Besides, he had not the least suspicion.  Jeanne, like all guilty women, overwhelmed him with kind attentions, which the good man mistook for proofs of love.  The fatal passion was growing daily stronger in the young woman’s heart, and she would have found it impossible to have given up her dishonorable happiness with Panine.  She felt herself capable of doing anything to preserve her lover.

Jeanne had already said, “Oh! if we were but free!” And they formed projects.  They would go away to Lake Lugano, and, in a villa hidden by trees and shrubs, would enjoy the pleasures of being indissolubly united.  The woman was more eager than the man in giving way to these visions of happiness.  She sometimes said, “What hinders us now?  Let us go.”  But Serge, prudent and discreet, even in the most affectionate moments, led Jeanne to take a more sensible view.  What was the use of a scandal?  Did they not belong to each other?

Then the young woman reproached him for not loving her as much as she loved him.  She was tired of dissimulating; her husband was an object of horror to her, and she had to tell him untruths and submit to his caresses which were revolting to her.  Serge calmed her with a kiss, and bade her wait awhile.