The actor fought for a long time, yielding his ground inch by inch.  He proposed revising his estimates.  The thing might be done cheaper.  “It would still be too dear for me,” Risler interrupted.  “My name doesn’t belong to me.  It is a part of the firm.  I have no right to pledge it.  Imagine my going into bankruptcy!” His voice trembled as he uttered the word.

“But if everything is in my name,” said Delobelle, who had no superstition.  He tried everything, invoked the sacred interests of art, went so far as to mention the fascinating actresses whose alluring glances—­Risler laughed aloud.

“Come, come, you rascal!  What’s that you’re saying?  You forget that we’re both married men, and that it is very late and our wives are expecting us.  No ill-will, eh?—­This is not a refusal, you understand.—­By the way, come and see me after the inventory.  We will talk it over again.  Ah! there’s Pere Achille putting out his gas.—­I must go in.  Good-night.”

It was after one o’clock when the actor returned home.  The two women were waiting for him, working as usual, but with a sort of feverish activity which was strange to them.  Every moment the great scissors that Mamma Delobelle used to cut the brass wire were seized with strange fits of trembling, and Desiree’s little fingers, as she mounted an insect, moved so fast that it made one dizzy to watch them.  Even the long feathers of the little birds scattered about on the table before her seemed more brilliant, more richly colored, than on other days.  It was because a lovely visitor named Hope had called upon them that evening.  She had made the tremendous effort required to climb five dark flights of stairs, and had opened the door of the little room to cast a luminous glance therein.  However much you may have been deceived in life, those magic gleams always dazzle you.

“Oh! if your father could only succeed!” said Mamma Delobelle from time to time, as if to sum up a whole world of happy thoughts to which her reverie abandoned itself.

“He will succeed, mamma, never fear.  Monsieur Risler is so kind, I will answer for him.  And Sidonie is very fond of us, too, although since she was married she does seem to neglect her old friends a little.  But we must make allowance for the difference in our positions.  Besides, I never shall forget what she did for me.”

And, at the thought of what Sidonie had done for her, the little cripple applied herself with even more feverish energy to her work.  Her electrified fingers moved with redoubled swiftness.  You would have said that they were running after some fleeing, elusive thing, like happiness, for example, or the love of some one who loves you not.

“What was it that she did for you?” her mother would naturally have asked her; but at that moment she was only slightly interested in what her daughter said.  She was thinking exclusively of her great man.