“My head is spinning,” he said to Planus: 

“Lean hard on me, old fellow-don’t be afraid.”

And honest Planus drew himself up, escorting his friend with the artless, unconventional pride of a peasant of the South bearing aloft his village saint.

At last they arrived at the Palais-Royal.

The garden was full of people.  They had come to hear the music, and were trying to find seats amid clouds of dust and the scraping of chairs.  The two friends hurried into the restaurant to avoid all that turmoil.  They established themselves in one of the large salons on the first floor, whence they could see the green trees, the promenaders, and the water spurting from the fountain between the two melancholy flower-gardens.  To Sigismond it was the ideal of luxury, that restaurant, with gilding everywhere, around the mirrors, in the chandelier and even on the figured wallpaper.  The white napkin, the roll, the menu of a table d’hote dinner filled his soul with joy.  “We are comfortable here, aren’t we?” he said to Risler.

And he exclaimed at each of the courses of that banquet at two francs fifty, and insisted on filling his friend’s plate.

“Eat that—­it’s good.”

The other, notwithstanding his desire to do honor to the fete, seemed preoccupied and gazed out-of-doors.

“Do you remember, Sigismond?” he said, after a pause.

The old cashier, engrossed in his memories of long ago, of Risler’s first employment at the factory, replied: 

“I should think I do remember—­listen!  The first time we dined together at the Palais-Royal was in February, ’forty-six, the year we put in the planches-plates at the factory.”

Risler shook his head.

“Oh! no—­I mean three years ago.  It was in that room just opposite that we dined on that memorable evening.”

And he pointed to the great windows of the salon of Cafe Vefour, gleaming in the rays of the setting sun like the chandeliers at a wedding feast.

“Ah! yes, true,” murmured Sigismond, abashed.  What an unlucky idea of his to bring his friend to a place that recalled such painful things!

Risler, not wishing to cast a gloom upon their banquet, abruptly raised his glass.

“Come! here’s your health, my old comrade.”

He tried to change the subject.  But a moment later he himself led the conversation back to it again, and asked Sigismond, in an undertone, as if he were ashamed: 

“Have you seen her?”

“Your wife?  No, never.”

“She hasn’t written again?”

“No—­never again.”

“But you must have heard of her.  What has she been doing these six months?  Does she live with her parents?”

“No.”

Risler turned pale.