ay muttered
something, bowed and went out, knocking himself against the edge of the
door, like Nathan in "Athalie."

"It is extraordinary," he said, when the door was closed behind him,
"how easily these husbands, whom we ridicule, gain an advantage over
us."

Lucien having left, Danglars took his place on the sofa, closed the open
book, and placing himself in a dreadfully dictatorial attitude, he began
playing with the dog; but the animal, not liking him as well as Debray,
and attempting to bite him, Danglars seized him by the skin of his neck
and threw him upon a couch on the other side of the room. The animal
uttered a cry during the transit, but, arrived at its destination, it
crouched behind the cushions, and stupefied at such unusual treatment
remained silent and motionless. "Do you know, sir," asked the baroness,
"that you are improving? Generally you are only rude, but to-night you
are brutal."

"It is because I am in a worse humor than usual," replied Danglars.
Hermine looked at the banker with supreme disdain. These glances
frequently exasperated the pride of Danglars, but this evening he took
no notice of them.

"And what have I to do with your ill-humor?" said the baroness,
irritated at the impassibility of her husband; "do these things concern
me? Keep your ill-humor at home in your money boxes, or, since you have
clerks whom you pay, vent it upon them."

"Not so," replied Danglars; "your advice is wrong, so I shall not follow
it. My money boxes are my Pactolus, as, I think, M. Demoustier says, and
I will not retard its course, or disturb its calm. My clerks are honest
men, who earn my fortune, whom I pay much below their deserts, if I may
value them according to what they bring in; therefore I shall not get
into a passion with them; those with whom I will be in a passion are
those who eat my dinners, mount my horses, and exhaust my fortune."

"And pray who are the persons who exhaust your fortune? Explain yourself
more clearly, I beg, sir."

"Oh, make yourself easy!--I am not speaking riddles, and you will soon
know what I mean. The people who exhaust my fortune are those who draw
out 700,000 francs in the course of an hour."

"I do not understand you, sir," said the baroness, trying to disguise
the agitation of her voice and the flush of her face. "You understand me
perfectly, on the contrary," said Danglars: "but, if you will persist,
I will tell you that I have just lost 700,000 francs upon th