“Basta!” he exclaimed, in conclusion, as he dropped heavily into his chair.  “Not another word for the ’whole empire.  Give me something to drink!  Notary, you are the only man here who has any regard for me.  One thing is certain about this matter—­I am in ten louis by this rascal’s adventure.”

These words struck the Baron forcibly, as they brought to his mind what the carpenter had said to him when he gave him the letter.

“Ten louis!” said he, suddenly, looking at Marillac as if he wished to look into his very heart.

“Two hundred francs, if you like it better.  A genuine bargain.  But we have talked enough, ‘mio caro’; you deceive yourselves if you think you are going to make me blab.  No, indeed!  I am not the one to allow myself to become entangled.  I am now as mute and silent as the grave.”

Bergenheim insisted no longer, but, leaning against the back of his chair, he let his head fall upon his breast.  He remained for some time buried in thought and vainly trying to connect the obscure words he had just heard with Lambernier’s incomplete revelations.  With the exception of Gerfaut, who did not lose one of his host’s movements, the guests, more or less absorbed by their own sensations, paid no attention to the strange attitude of the master of the house, or, like Monsieur de Camier, attributed it to the influence of wine.  The conversation continued its noisy course, interrupted every few moments by the startling vagaries of some guest more animatedly excited than the rest, for, at the end of a repast where sobriety has not reigned, each one is disposed to impose upon others the despotism of his own intoxication, and the idle talk of his peculiar hallucinations.  Marillac bore away the prize among the talking contingent, thanks to the vigor of his lungs and the originality of his words, which sometimes forced the attention of his adversaries.  Finally he remained master of the field, and flashed volleys of his drunken eloquence to the right and left.

“It is a pity,” he exclaimed, in the midst of his triumph, as he glanced disdainfully up and down the table, “it really is a pity, gentlemen, to listen to your conversation.  One could imagine nothing more commonplace-prosaic or bourgeois.  Would it not please you to indulge in a discussion of a little higher order?

“Let us join hands, and talk of poetry and art.  I am thirsting for an artistic conversation; I am thirsting for wit and intelligence.”

“You must drink if you are thirsty,” said the notary, filling his glass to the brim.

The artist emptied it at one draught, and continued in a languishing voice as he gazed with a loving look at his fat neighbor.

“I will begin our artistic conversation:  ’Knowest thou the land where the orange-flower blooms?’”

“It is warmer than ours,” replied the notary, who was not familiar with Mignon’s song; and, beginning to laugh maliciously, he gave a wink at his neighbors as if to say: