ty years old, had confessed to his uncle
that he owed several thousand francs in gambling debts. The elder man
thereupon conceived a violent antipathy for the club and contempt for all
its members. A rich tradesman who was a member happened to come to the
factory one day, and Sigismond said to him with brutal frankness:

"The devil take your 'Cercle du Chateau d'Eau!' Monsieur Georges has left
more than thirty thousand francs there in two months."

The other began to laugh.

"Why, you're greatly mistaken, Pere Planus--it's at least three months
since we have seen your master."

The cashier did not pursue the conversation; but a terrible thought took
up its abode in his mind, and he turned it over and over all day long.

If Georges did not go to the club, where did he pass his evenings? Where
did he spend so much money?

There was evidently a woman at the bottom of the affair.

As soon as that idea occurred to him, Sigismond Planus began to tremble
seriously for his cash-box. That old bear from the canton of Berne, a
confirmed bachelor, had a terrible dread of women in general and Parisian
women in particular. He deemed it his duty, first of all, in order to set
his conscience at rest, to warn Risler. He did it at first in rather a
vague way.

"Monsieur Georges is spending a great deal of money," he said to him one
day.

Risler exhibited no surprise.

"What do you expect me to do, my old Sigismond? It is his right."

And the honest fellow meant what he said. In his eyes Fromont jeune was
the absolute master of the establishment. It would have been a fine
thing, and no mistake, for him, an ex-draughtsman, to venture to make any
comments. The cashier dared say no more until the day when a messenger
came from a great shawl-house with a bill for six thousand francs for a
cashmere shawl.

He went to Georges in his office.

"Shall I pay it, Monsieur?"

Georges Fromont was a little annoyed. Sidonie had forgotten to tell him
of this latest purchase; she used no ceremony with him now.

"Pay it, pay it, Pere Planus," he said, with a shade of embarrassment,
and added: "Charge it to the account of Fromont jeune. It is a commission
intrusted to me by a friend."

That evening, as Sigismond was lighting his little lamp, he saw Risler
crossing the garden, and tapped on the window to call him.

"It's a woman," he said, under his breath. "I have the proof of it now."

As he uttered the awful words "a woman" his voice