Fromont and Risler, vol 4 | Page 7

friend, no; be calm. I know that you are the most honorable
man on earth."
He looked at her a moment, with trembling lips and clasped hands, for
there was something child-like in all the manifestations of that artless
nature.
"Oh! Madame Chorche, Madame Chorche," he murmured. "When I
think that I am the one who has ruined you."
In the terrible blow which overwhelmed him, and by which his heart,
overflowing with love for Sidonie, was most deeply wounded, he
refused to see anything but the financial disaster to the house of
Fromont, caused by his blind devotion to his wife. Suddenly he stood
erect.
"Come," he said, "let us not give way to emotion. We must see about
settling our accounts."
Madame Fromont was frightened.
"Risler, Risler--where are you going?"
She thought that he was going up to Georges' room.
Risler understood her and smiled in superb disdain.
"Never fear, Madame. Monsieur Georges can sleep in peace. I have
something more urgent to do than avenge my honor as a husband. Wait
for me here. I will come back."
He darted toward the narrow staircase; and Claire, relying upon his
word, remained with Planus during one of those supreme moments of

uncertainty which seem interminable because of all the conjectures
with which they are thronged.
A few moments later the sound of hurried steps, the rustling of silk
filled the dark and narrow staircase. Sidonie appeared first, in ball
costume, gorgeously arrayed and so pale that the jewels that glistened
everywhere on her dead-white flesh seemed more alive than she, as if
they were scattered over the cold marble of a statue. The breathlessness
due to dancing, the trembling of intense excitement and her rapid
descent, caused her to shake from head to foot, and her floating ribbons,
her ruffles, her flowers, her rich and fashionable attire drooped
tragically about her. Risler followed her, laden with jewel-cases,
caskets, and papers. Upon reaching his apartments he had pounced
upon his wife's desk, seized everything valuable that it contained,
jewels, certificates, title-deeds of the house at Asnieres; then, standing
in the doorway, he had shouted into the ballroom:
"Madame Risler!"
She had run quickly to him, and that brief scene had in no wise
disturbed the guests, then at the height of the evening's enjoyment.
When she saw her husband standing in front of the desk, the drawers
broken open and overturned on the carpet with the multitude of trifles
they contained, she realized that something terrible was taking place.
"Come at once," said Risler; "I know all."
She tried to assume an innocent, dignified attitude; but he seized her by
the arm with such force that Frantz's words came to her mind: "It will
kill him perhaps, but he will kill you first." As she was afraid of death,
she allowed herself to be led away without resistance, and had not even
the strength to lie.
"Where are we going?" she asked, in a low voice.
Risler did not answer. She had only time to throw over her shoulders,
with the care for herself that never failed her, a light tulle veil, and he
dragged her, pushed her, rather, down the stairs leading to the

counting-room, which he descended at the same time, his steps close
upon hers, fearing that his prey would escape.
"There!" he said, as he entered the room. "We have stolen, we make
restitution. Look, Planus, you can raise money with all this stuff." And
he placed on the cashier's desk all the fashionable plunder with which
his arms were filled--feminine trinkets, trivial aids to coquetry, stamped
papers.
Then he turned to his wife:
"Take off your jewels! Come, be quick."
She complied slowly, opened reluctantly the clasps of bracelets and
buckles, and above all the superb fastening of her diamond necklace on
which the initial of her name-a gleaming S-resembled a sleeping
serpent, imprisoned in a circle of gold. Risler, thinking that she was too
slow, ruthlessly broke, the fragile fastenings. Luxury shrieked beneath
his fingers, as if it were being whipped.
"Now it is my turn," he said; "I too must give up everything. Here is
my portfolio. What else have I? What else have I?"
He searched his pockets feverishly.
"Ah! my watch. With the chain it will bring four-thousand francs. My
rings, my wedding-ring. Everything goes into the cash-box, everything.
We have a hundred thousand francs to pay this morning. As soon as it
is daylight we must go to work, sell out and pay our debts. I know
some one who wants the house at Asnieres. That can be settled at
once."
He alone spoke and acted. Sigismond and Madame Georges watched
him without speaking. As for Sidonie, she seemed unconscious, lifeless.
The cold air blowing from the garden through the little