a pillar, her smile would have lost
that equivocal placidity, her voice would have sought in vain those
wheedling, languorous tones in which she warbled the only song Madame
Dobson had ever been able to teach her:

Pauv' pitit Mamz'elle Zizi,
C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne
La tete a li.

Risler had risen, in spite of Planus's efforts. "Sit down! sit down!"
the people shouted. The wretched man heard nothing. He was staring at
his wife.

C'est l'amou, l'amou qui tourne
La tete a li,

Sidonie repeated affectedly.

For a moment he wondered whether he should not leap on the platform
and kill her. Red flames shot before his eyes, and he was blinded with
frenzy.

Then, suddenly, shame and disgust seized upon him and he rushed from
the hall, overturning chairs and tables, pursued by the terror and
imprecations of all those scandalized bourgeois.

CHAPTER XXIV. SIDONIE'S VENGEANCE

Never had Sigismond Planus returned home so late without giving his
sister warning, during the twenty years and more that he had lived at
Montrouge. Consequently Mademoiselle Planus was greatly worried. Living
in community of ideas and of everything else with her brother, having
but one mind for herself and for him, the old maid had felt for several
months the rebound of all the cashier's anxiety and indignation; and
the effect was still noticeable in her tendency to tremble and
become agitated on slight provocation. At the slightest tardiness on
Sigismond's part, she would think:

"Ah! mon Dieu! If only nothing has happened at the factory!"

That is the reason why on the evening in question, when the hens and
chickens were all asleep on their perches, and the dinner had been
removed untouched, Mademoiselle Planus was sitting in the little
ground-floor living-room, waiting, in great agitation.

At last, about eleven o'clock, some one rang. A timid, melancholy ring,
in no wise resembling Sigismond's vigorous pull.

"Is it you, Monsieur Planus?" queried the old lady from behind the door.

It was he; but he was not alone. A tall, bent old man accompanied him,
and, as they entered, bade her good-evening in a slow, hesitating voice.
Not till then did Mademoiselle Planus recognize Risler Aine, whom she
had not seen since the days of the New Year's calls, that is to say,
some time before the dramas at the factory. She could hardly restrain an
exclamation of pity; but the grave tacitur