They organized grand dinner-parties, excursions on the water, fireworks.  From day to day Risler’s position became more absurd, more distressing.  When he came home in the evening, tired out, shabbily dressed, he must hurry up to his room to dress.

“We have some people to dinner,” his wife would say.  “Make haste.”

And he would be the last to take his place at the table, after shaking hands all around with his guests, friends of Fromont Jeune, whom he hardly knew by name.  Strange to say, the affairs of the factory were often discussed at that table, to which Georges brought his acquaintances from the club with the tranquil self-assurance of the gentleman who pays.

“Business breakfasts and dinners!” To Risler’s mind that phrase explained everything:  his partner’s constant presence, his choice of guests, and the marvellous gowns worn by Sidonie, who beautified herself in the interests of the firm.  This coquetry on his mistress’s part drove Fromont Jeune to despair.  Day after day he came unexpectedly to take her by surprise, uneasy, suspicious, afraid to leave that perverse and deceitful character to its own devices for long.

“What in the deuce has become of your husband?”

Pere Gardinois would ask his grand-daughter with a cunning leer.  “Why doesn’t he come here oftener?”

Claire apologized for Georges, but his continual neglect began to disturb her.  She wept now when she received the little notes, the despatches which arrived daily at the dinner-hour:  “Don’t expect me to-night, dear love.  I shall not be able to come to Savigny until to-morrow or the day after by the night-train.”

She ate her dinner sadly, opposite an empty chair, and although she did not know that she was betrayed, she felt that her husband was becoming accustomed to living away from her.  He was so absent-minded when a family gathering or some other unavoidable duty detained him at the chateau, so silent concerning what was in his mind.  Claire, having now only the most distant relations with Sidonie, knew nothing of what was taking place at Asnieres:  but when Georges left her, apparently eager to be gone, and with smiling face, she tormented her loneliness with unavowed suspicions, and, like all those who anticipate a great sorrow, she suddenly became conscious of a great void in her heart, a place made ready for disasters to come.

Her husband was hardly happier than she.  That cruel Sidonie seemed to take pleasure in tormenting him.  She allowed everybody to pay court to her.  At that moment a certain Cazabon, alias Cazaboni, an Italian tenor from Toulouse, introduced by Madame Dobson, came every day to sing disturbing duets.  Georges, jealous beyond words, hurried to Asnieres in the afternoon, neglecting everything, and was already beginning to think that Risler did not watch his wife closely enough.  He would have liked him to be blind only so far as he was concerned.