The ex-actor concluded his harangue with a wink at the comique and the financier, and for a moment the three exchanged glances, conventional grimaces, ‘ha-has!’ and ‘hum-hums!’ and all the usual pantomime expressive of thoughts too deep for words.

Frantz was struck dumb.  Do what he would, the horrible certainty assailed him on all sides.  Sigismond had spoken in accordance with his nature, Delobelle with his.  The result was the same.

Fortunately the dinner was drawing near its close.  The three actors left the table and betook themselves to the brewery on the Rue Blondel.  Frantz remained with the two women.

As he sat beside her, gentle and affectionate in manner, Desiree was suddenly conscious of a great outflow of gratitude to Sidonie.  She said to herself that, after all, it was to her generosity that she owed this semblance of happiness, and that thought gave her courage to defend her former friend.

“You see, Monsieur Frantz, you mustn’t believe all my father told you about your sister-in-law.  Dear papa! he always exaggerates a little.  For my own part, I am very sure that Sidonie is incapable of all the evil she is accused of.  I am sure that her heart has remained the same; and that she is still fond of her friends, although she does neglect them a little.  Such is life, you know.  Friends drift apart without meaning to.  Isn’t that true, Monsieur Frantz?”

Oh! how pretty she was in his eyes, while she talked in that strain.  He never had taken so much notice of the refined features, the aristocratic pallor of her complexion; and when he left her that evening, deeply touched by the warmth she had displayed in defending Sidonie, by all the charming feminine excuses she put forward for her friend’s silence and neglect, Frantz Risler reflected, with a feeling of selfish and ingenuous pleasure, that the child had loved him once, and that perhaps she loved him still, and kept for him in the bottom of her heart that warm, sheltered spot to which we turn as to the sanctuary when life has wounded us.

All night long in his old room, lulled by the imaginary movement of the vessel, by the murmur of the waves and the howling of the wind which follow long sea voyages, he dreamed of his youthful days, of little Chebe and Desiree Delobelle, of their games, their labors, and of the Ecole Centrale, whose great, gloomy buildings were sleeping near at hand, in the dark streets of the Marais.

And when daylight came, and the sun shining in at his bare window vexed his eyes and brought him back to a realization of the duty that lay before him and to the anxieties of the day, he dreamed that it was time to go to the School, and that his brother, before going down to the factory, opened the door and called to him: 

“Come, lazybones!  Come!”

That dear, loving voice, too natural, too real for a dream, made him open his eyes without more ado.

Risler was standing by his bed, watching his awakening with a charming smile, not untinged by emotion; that it was Risler himself was evident from the fact that, in his joy at seeing his brother Frantz once more, he could find nothing better to say than, “I am very happy, I am very happy!”