And at other times,     

       “Two or three more operations like the one we have just successfully wound up, and we can shut up shop!”     

       From all this, what could she conclude, if not that he was marching with rapid strides towards that fortune, the object of all his ambition?     

       Already in the neighborhood he had that reputation to be very rich, which is the beginning of riches itself. He was admired for keeping his house with such rigid economy; for a man is always esteemed who has money, and does not spend it.     

       “He is not the man ever to squander what he has,” the neighbors repeated.     

       The persons whom he received on Saturdays believed him more than comfortably off. When M. Desclavettes and M. Chapelain had complained to their hearts’ contents, the one of the shop, the other of his office, they never failed to add,     

       “You laugh at us, because you are engaged in large operations, where people make as much money as they like.”     

       They seemed to hold his financial capacities in high estimation. They consulted him, and followed his advice.     

       M. Desormeaux was wont to say,     

       “Oh! he knows what he is about.”     

       And Mme. Favoral tried to persuade herself, that, in this respect at least, her husband was a remarkable man. She attributed his silence and his distractions to the grave cares that filled his mind. In the same manner that he had once announced to her that they had enough to live on, she expected him, some fine morning, to tell her that he was a millionaire.     

       IX     

       But the respite granted by fate to Mme. Favoral was drawing to an end:       her trials were about to return more poignant than ever, occasioned, this time, by her children, hitherto her whole happiness and her only consolation.     

       Maxence was nearly twelve. He was a good little fellow, intelligent, studious at times, but thoughtless in the extreme, and of a turbulence which nothing 

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