“Have you noticed how sweet the flowers smell this year, mamma?”

And Frantz, too, began to fall under the charm.  Little by little Mam’zelle Zizi took possession of his heart and banished from it even the memory of Sidonie.  To be sure, the poor judge did all that he could to accomplish that result.  At every hour in the day he was by Desiree’s side, and clung to her like a child.  Not once did he venture to return to Asnieres.  He feared the other too much.

“Pray come and see us once in a while; Sidonie keeps asking for you,” Risler said to him from time to time, when his brother came to the factory to see him.  But Frantz held firm, alleging all sorts of business engagements as pretexts for postponing his visit to the next day.  It was easy to satisfy Risler, who was more engrossed than ever with his press, which they had just begun to build.

Whenever Frantz came down from his brother’s closet, old Sigismond was sure to be watching for him, and would walk a few steps with him in his long, lute-string sleeves, quill and knife in hand.  He kept the young man informed concerning matters at the factory.  For some time past, things seemed to have changed for the better.  Monsieur Georges came to his office regularly, and returned to Savigny every night.  No more bills were presented at the counting-room.  It seemed, too, that Madame over yonder was keeping more within bounds.

The cashier was triumphant.

“You see, my boy, whether I did well to write to you.  Your arrival was all that was needed to straighten everything out.  And yet,” the good man would add by force of habit, “and yet I haf no gonfidence.”

“Never fear, Monsieur Sigismond, I am here,” the judge would reply.

“You’re not going away yet, are you, my dear Frantz?”

“No, no—­not yet.  I have an important matter to finish up first.”

“Ah! so much the better.”

The important matter to which Frantz referred was his marriage to Desiree Delobelle.  He had not yet mentioned it to any one, not even to her; but Mam’zelle Zizi must have suspected something, for she became prettier and more lighthearted from day to day, as if she foresaw that the day would soon come when she would need all her gayety and all her beauty.

They were alone in the workroom one Sunday afternoon.  Mamma Delobelle had gone out, proud enough to show herself for once in public with her great man, and leaving friend Frantz with her daughter to keep her company.  Carefully dressed, his whole person denoting a holiday air, Frantz had a singular expression on his face that day, an expression at once timid and resolute, emotional and solemn, and simply from the way in which the little low chair took its place beside the great easy-chair, the easy-chair understood that a very serious communication was about to be made to it in confidence, and it had some little suspicion as to what it might be.