Sandoz had at last obtained two cups of coffee, and as the waiter had forgotten to bring any sugar, he had to content himself with some pieces which a party had left on an adjoining table.  A few tables, indeed, had now become vacant, but the general freedom had increased, and one woman’s laughter rang out so loudly that every head turned round.  The men were smoking, and a bluish cloud slowly rose above the straggling tablecloths, stained by wine and littered with dirty plates and dishes.  When Fagerolles, on his aide, succeeded in obtaining two glasses of chartreuse for himself and Jory, he began to talk to Sandoz, whom he treated with a certain amount of deference, divining that the novelist might become a power.  And Jory thereupon appropriated Claude, who had again become mournful and silent.

‘You know, my dear fellow,’ said the journalist, ’I didn’t send you any announcement of my marriage.  On account of our position we managed it on the quiet without inviting any guests.  All the same, I should have liked to let you know.  You will excuse me, won’t you?’

He showed himself expansive, gave particulars, full of the happiness of life, and egotistically delighted to feel fat and victorious in front of that poor vanquished fellow.  He succeeded with everything, he said.  He had given up leader-writing, feeling the necessity of settling down seriously, and he had risen to the editorship of a prominent art review, on which, so it was asserted, he made thirty thousand francs a year, without mentioning certain profits realised by shady trafficking in the sale of art collections.  The middle-class rapacity which he had inherited from his mother, the hereditary passion for profit which had secretly impelled him to embark in petty speculations as soon as he had gained a few coppers, now openly displayed itself, and ended by making him a terrible customer, who bled all the artists and amateurs who came under his clutches.

It was amidst this good luck of his that Mathilde, now all-powerful, had brought him to the point of begging her, with tears in his eyes, to become his wife, a request which she had proudly refused during six long months.

‘When folks are destined to live together,’ he continued, ’the best course is to set everything square.  You experienced it yourself, my dear fellow; you know something about it, eh?  And if I told you that she wouldn’t consent at first—­yes, it’s a fact—­for fear of being misjudged and of doing me harm.  Oh! she has such grandeur, such delicacy of mind!  No, nobody can have an idea of that woman’s qualities.  Devoted, taking all possible care of one, economical, and acute, too, and such a good adviser!  Ah! it was a lucky chance that I met her!  I no longer do anything without consulting her; I let her do as she likes; she manages everything, upon my word.’