Chapter V

As Marguerite left the room, Madame Claes glanced at the children through the windows of her chamber, which looked on the garden, and saw that they were watching one of those insects with shining wings spotted with gold, commonly called "darning-needles."

"Be good, my darlings," she said, raising the lower sash of the window and leaving it up to air the room. Then she knocked gently on the door of communication, to assure herself that Balthazar had not fallen into abstraction. He opened it, and seeing him half-dressed, she said in joyous tones:--

"You won't leave me long with Pierquin, will you? Come as soon as you can."

Her step was so light as she descended that a listener would never have supposed her lame.

"When monsieur carried madame upstairs," said the old valet, whom she met on the staircase, "he tore this bit out of her dress, and he broke the jaw of that griffin; I'm sure I don't know who can put it on again. There's our staircase ruined--and it used to be so handsome!"

"Never mind, my poor Mulquinier; don't have it mended at all--it is not a misfortune," said his mistress.

"What can have happened?" thought Lemulquinier; "why isn't it a misfortune, I should like to know? has the master found the Absolute?"

"Good-evening, Monsieur Pierquin," said Madame Claes, opening the parlor door.

The notary rushed forward to give her his arm; as she never took any but that of her husband she thanked him with a smile and said,--

"Have you come for the thirty thousand francs?"

"Yes, madame; when I reached home I found a letter of advice from Messieurs Protez and Chiffreville, who have drawn six letters of exchange upon Monsieur Claes for five thousand francs each."

"Well, say nothing to Balthazar to-day," she replied. "Stay and dine with us. If he happens to ask why you came, find some plausible pretext, I entreat you. Give me the letter. I will speak to him myself about it. All is well," she added, noticing the lawyer's surprise. "In a few months my husband will probably pay off all the sums he has borrowed."

Hearing these words, which were said in a low voice, the notary looked at Mademoiselle Claes, who was entering the room from the garden followed by Gabriel and Felicie, and remarked,--

"I have never seen Mademoiselle Marguerite as pretty as she is at this moment."

Madame Claes, who was sitting in her armchair with little Jean upon her lap, raised her head and looked at her daughter, and then at the notary, with a pretended air of indifference.

Pierquin was a man of middle height, neither stout nor thin, with vulgar good looks, a face that expressed vexation rather than melancholy, and a pensive habit in which there was more of