h, nothing, nothing.' But further pressed he came out with it. Well,
the fact was--the fact was--that he had had enough of starving. Dun,
dun, dun. One hole stopped and another opened. He would not stand any
more of it, so there!

From the drawing-room came loud exclamations and wild laughter, together
with the expressionless voice of Valere, directing the dancer in the
imitation of an old-fashioned ballet figure.

'How much do you want?' whispered the mother trembling. She had never
seen him like this before.

'No, it's no use; it's more than you could possibly manage.'

'How much?' she asked again.

'Eight hundred.' And the agent must have it tomorrow by five o'clock,
or else he would take possession. There would be a sale and all sorts
of horrors. Sooner than that--and here he ground his cigar between
his teeth as he said the last words--'better make a hole in my
frontispiece.'

The mother had heard enough. 'Hush! hush!' she said. 'By five o'clock
to-morrow? Hush!' And she flung herself upon him, and she pressed her
hands in agony upon his lips, as if she would arrest there the appalling
sentence of death.

CHAPTER VI.

That night she could not sleep. Eight hundred pounds! eight hundred
pounds! The words went to and fro in her head. Where were they to be
found? To whom could she apply? There was so little time. Names and
faces flashed before her, passing for a moment where the pale gleam of
the night-light fell on the ceiling, only to disappear and be replaced
by other names and other faces, which vanished as quickly in their
turn. Freydet? She had just made use of him. Sammy? Had nothing till he
married. Besides, did anybody do such a thing as to borrow or lend eight
hundred pounds? No one but a poet from the country. In Parisian society
money never appears on the scene; it is assumed that you have it and are
above these details, like the people in genteel comedy. A breach of this
convention would banish the transgressor from respectable company.

And while Madame Astier pursued her feverish thoughts she saw beside her
the round back of her husband rising and falling peacefully. It was one
of the depressing incidents of their joint life that they had lain thus
side by side for thirty years, having nothing in common but the bed. But
never had the isolation of her surly bedfellow so strongly aroused her
indignation. What was the use of waking him, of talking to him about the
boy and his desperate thre