Risler had reached that point in his dream.

And now the worthy man, dazed with fatigue and well-being, glanced vaguely about that huge table of twenty-four covers, curved in the shape of a horseshoe at the ends, and surrounded by smiling, familiar faces, wherein he seemed to see his happiness reflected in every eye.  The dinner was drawing near its close.  The wave of private conversation flowed around the table.  Faces were turned toward one another, black sleeves stole behind waists adorned with bunches of asclepias, a childish face laughed over a fruit ice, and the dessert at the level of the guests’ lips encompassed the cloth with animation, bright colors, and light.

Ah, yes!  Risler was very happy.

Except his brother Frantz, everybody he loved was there.  First of all, sitting opposite him, was Sidonie—­yesterday little Sidonie, to-day his wife.  For the ceremony of dinner she had laid aside her veil; she had emerged from her cloud.  Now, above the smooth, white silk gown, appeared a pretty face of a less lustrous and softer white, and the crown of hair-beneath that other crown so carefully bestowed—­would have told you of a tendency to rebel against life, of little feathers fluttering for an opportunity to fly away.  But husbands do not see such things as those.

Next to Sidonie and Frantz, the person whom Risler loved best in the world was Madame Georges Fromont, whom he called “Madame Chorche,” the wife of his partner and the daughter of the late Fromont, his former employer and his god.  He had placed her beside him, and in his manner of speaking to her one could read affection and deference.  She was a very young woman, of about the same age as Sidonie, but of a more regular, quiet and placid type of beauty.  She talked little, being out of her element in that conglomerate assemblage; but she tried to appear affable.

On Risler’s other side sat Madame Chebe, the bride’s mother, radiant and gorgeous in her green satin gown, which gleamed like a shield.  Ever since the morning the good woman’s every thought had been as brilliant as that robe of emblematic hue.  At every moment she said to herself:  “My daughter is marrying Fromont Jeune and Risler Aine, of Rue des Vieilles Haudriettes!” For, in her mind, it was not Risler alone whom her daughter took for her husband, but the whole sign of the establishment, illustrious in the commercial annals of Paris; and whenever she mentally announced that glorious event, Madame Chebe sat more erect than ever, stretching the silk of the bodice until it almost cracked.

What a contrast to the attitude of Monsieur Chebe, who was seated at a short distance.  In different households, as a general rule, the same causes produce altogether different results.  That little man, with the high forehead of a visionary, as inflated and hollow as a ball, was as fierce in appearance as his wife was radiant.  That was nothing unusual, by the way, for Monsieur Chebe was in a frenzy the