As he was emerging from the Impasse Saint-Mittre with hesitating steps, wondering whether it would not be dangerous to solicit Silvere’s pardon from the prefect, he saw Aristide prowling about the timber-yard.  The latter, recognising his father, ran up to him with an expression of anxiety and whispered a few words in his ear.  Pierre turned pale, and cast a look of alarm towards the end of the yard, where the darkness was only relieved by the ruddy glow of a little gipsy fire.  Then they both disappeared down the Rue de Rome, quickening their steps as though they had committed a murder, and turning up their coat-collars in order that they might not be recognised.

“That saves me an errand,” Rougon whispered.  “Let us go to dinner.  They are waiting for us.”

When they arrived, the yellow drawing-room was resplendent.  Felicite was all over the place.  Everybody was there; Sicardot, Granoux, Roudier, Vuillet, the oil-dealers, the almond-dealers, the whole set.  The marquis, however, had excused himself on the plea of rheumatism; and, besides, he was about to leave Plassans on a short trip.  Those bloodstained bourgeois offended his feelings of delicacy, and moreover his relative, the Count de Valqueyras, had begged him to withdraw from public notice for a little time.  Monsieur de Carnavant’s refusal vexed the Rougons; but Felicite consoled herself by resolving to make a more profuse display.  She hired a pair of candelabra and ordered several additional dishes as a kind of substitute for the marquis.  The table was laid in the yellow drawing-room, in order to impart more solemnity to the occasion.  The Hotel de Provence had supplied the silver, the china, and the glass.  The cloth had been laid ever since five o’clock in order that the guests on arriving might feast their eyes upon it.  At either end of the table, on the white cloth, were bouquets of artificial roses, in porcelain vases gilded and painted with flowers.

When the habitual guests of the yellow drawing-room were assembled there they could not conceal their admiration of the spectacle.  Several gentlemen smiled with an air of embarrassment while they exchanged furtive glances, which clearly signified, “These Rougons are mad, they are throwing their money out of the window.”  The truth was that Felicite, on going round to invite her guests, had been unable to hold her tongue.  So everybody knew that Pierre had been decorated, and that he was about to be nominated to some post; at which, of course, they pulled wry faces.  Roudier indeed observed that “the little black woman was puffing herself out too much.”  Now that “prize-day” had come this band of bourgeois, who had rushed upon the expiring Republic—­each one keeping an eye on the other, and glorying in giving a deeper bite than his neighbour—­did not think it fair that their hosts should have all the laurels of the battle.  Even those who had merely howled by instinct, asking no recompense of the rising Empire, were greatly annoyed to see that, thanks to them, the poorest and least reputable of them all should be decorated with the red ribbon.  The whole yellow drawing-room ought to have been decorated!