ed in one
of those portfolios with patent locks made by Huret or Fichet, two
mechanics who were then waging war in advertisements and posters all
over Paris, as to which could make the safest and most impenetrable
locks.

This portfolio was left about in Florine's new boudoir, where Nathan did
much of his work. No one is easier to deceive than a woman to whom a man
is in the habit of telling everything; she has no suspicions; she thinks
she sees and hears and knows all. Besides, since her return, Nathan had
led the most regular of lives under her very nose. Never did she
imagine that that portfolio, which she hardly glanced at as it lay there
unconcealed, contained the letters of a rival, treasures of admiring
love which the countess addressed, at Raoul's request, to the office of
his newspaper.

Nathan's situation was, therefore, to all appearance, extremely
brilliant. He had many friends. The two plays lately produced had
succeeded well, and their proceeds supplied his personal wants and
relieved him of all care for the future. His debt to du Tillet, "his
friend," did not make him in the least uneasy.

"Why distrust a friend?" he said to Blondet, who from time to time
would cast a doubt on his position, led to do so by his general habit of
analyzing.

"But we don't need to distrust our enemies," remarked Florine.

Nathan defended du Tillet; he was the best, the most upright of men.

This existence, which was really that of a dancer on the tight rope
without his balance-pole, would have alarmed any one, even the most
indifferent, had it been seen as it really was. Du Tillet watched it
with the cool eye and the cynicism of a parvenu. Through the friendly
good humor of his intercourse with Raoul there flashed now and then a
malignant jeer. One day, after pressing his hand in Florine's boudoir
and watching him as he got into his carriage, du Tillet remarked to
Lousteau (envier par excellence):--

"That fellow is off to the Bois in fine style to-day, but he is just as
likely, six months hence, to be in a debtor's prison."

"He? never!" cried Lousteau. "He has Florine."

"How do you know that he'll keep her? As for you, who are worth a
dozen of him, I predict that you will be our editor-in-chief within six
months."

In October Nathan's notes to du Tillet fell due, and the banker
graciously renewed them, but for two months only, with the discount
added and a fresh loan. Sure of victory, Raoul was not afraid of