of
contentment since the first of May. Throwing back his shoulders, with
his hat tipped slightly back in the attitude he had noticed in men who
were worried, overdone with business, allowing all the toil-born fever
of their brain to evaporate in the fresh air, as a factory discharges
its vapor into the gutter at the close of a day of labor, he walked on
among other figures like his own, evidently just from the pillared
temple that faces the Madeleine beyond the monumental fountains of the
square. As they passed, people turned and said: "They are deputies." And
Jansoulet felt a childlike joy, a vulgar joy compounded of ignorance
and ingenuous vanity.

"Buy the _Messager_ evening edition."

The words came from the newspaper booth at the end of the bridge, filled
at that hour with piles of freshly printed sheets which two women were
hastily folding and which smelt of the damp press, of the latest news,
the triumph of the day or its scandal. Almost all the deputies purchased
a copy as they passed, and ran through it rapidly, hoping to find their
names. Jansoulet, for his part, dreaded to see his and did not stop. But
suddenly he thought: "Ought not a public man to be above such weaknesses
as this? I am strong enough to read anything now." He retraced his steps
and took a paper like his colleagues. He opened it very calmly at the
place usually occupied by Moessard's articles. There was one there.
Still the same title: _Chinoiseries_, and an M. for signature.

"Aha!" said the public man, as unmoved and cold as marble, with a fine,
scornful smile. Mora's lesson was still ringing in his ears, and even if
he had forgotten it, the air from _Norma_ in jerky, ironical little
notes not far away would have sufficed to remind him of it. But, however
carefully we may make our calculations in the rush of events in our
lives, we must still reckon with the unforeseen; and that is why the
Nabob suddenly found himself blinded by a rush of blood to his eyes,
while a cry of rage was stifled by the sudden contraction of his throat.
His mother, his old Francoise, was dragged into the infamous jest of
the "flower boat" at last. How well that Moessard aimed, how well he
knew the really sensitive spots in that heart, so innocently laid bare!

"Be calm, Jansoulet, be calm."

In vain did he repeat the injunction in every tone,--anger, furious
anger, the drunkenness of blood demanding blood enveloped him. His first
impulse was to stop a cab and