g in his ears, and, had he
forgotten it, the air from _Norma_ which was being slowly played in
little ironical notes not far off would have sufficed to recall it
to him. Only, after all calculations have been made amid the fleeting
happenings of our existence, there is always the unforeseen to be
reckoned with; and that is how it came that the poor Nabob suddenly felt
a wave of blood blind him, a cry of rage strangle itself in the sudden
contraction of his throat. This time his mother, his old Frances, had
been dragged into the infamous joke of the "Bateau de fleurs." How well
he aimed his blows, this Moessard, how well he knew the really sensitive
spots in that heart, so frankly exposed!

"Be quiet, Jansoulet; be quiet."

It was in vain that he repeated the words to himself again and again:
anger, a wild anger, that intoxication of the blood that demands blood,
took possession of him. His first impulse was to hail a cab, that
he might escape from the irritating street, free his body from the
preoccupation of walking and maintaining a physical composure--to hail a
cab as for a wounded man. But the carriages which thronged the square
at that hour of general home-going were victorias, landaus, private
broughams, hundreds of them, passing down from the lurid splendour
of the Arc de Triomphe towards the violet shadows of the Tuileries,
rushing, it seemed, one over another, in the sloping perspective of
the avenue, down to the great square where the motionless statues, with
their circular crowns on their brows, watched them as they separated
towards the Faubourg Saint-Germain, the Rue Royale and the Rue de
Rivoli.

Jansoulet, his newspaper in his hand, traversed this tumult without
giving it a thought, carried by force of habit towards the club where he
went every day for his game of cards from six to seven. A public man, he
was that still; but excited, speaking aloud, muttering oaths and threats
in a voice that had suddenly grown tender again at the memory of the
dear old woman. To have dragged her into that--her also! Oh, if she
should read it, if she should understand! What punishment could he
invent for such an infamy? He had reached the Rue Royale, up which were
disappearing with the speed of horses that knew they were going home
and with glancings of shining axles, visions of veiled women, heads of
fair-haired children, equipages of all kinds returning from the Bois,
depositing a little genuine earth upon the Paris