When Raoul de Lagors spoke of M. Fauvel’s extraordinary dejection, he
had not exaggerated.
Since the fatal day when, upon his denunciation, his cashier had been
arrested, the banker, this active, energetic man of business, had been
a prey to the most gloomy melancholy, and absolutely refused to take any
interest in his affairs, seldom entering the banking-house.
He, who had always been so domestic, never came near his family except
at meals, when he would swallow a few mouthfuls, and hastily leave the
room.
Shut up in his study, he would deny himself to visitors. His anxious
countenance, his indifference to everybody and everything, his constant
reveries and fits of abstraction, betrayed the preoccupation of some
fixed idea, or the tyrannical empire of some hidden sorrow.
The day of Prosper’s release, about three o’clock, M. Fauvel was, as
usual, seated in his study, with his elbows resting on the table, and
his face buried in his hands, when his office-boy rushed in, and with a
frightened look said:
“Monsieur, the former cashier, M. Bertomy, is here with one of his
relatives; he says he must see you on business.”
The banker at these words started up as if he had been shot.
“Prosper!” he cried in a voice choked by anger, “what! does he dare--”
Then remembering that he ought to control himself before his servant, he
waited a few moments, and then said, in a tone of forced calmness:
“Ask them to walk in.”
If M. Verduret had counted upon witnessing a strange and affecting
sight, he was not disappointed.
Nothing could be more terrible than the attitude of these two men as
they stood confronting each other. The banker’s face was almost purple
with suppressed anger, and he looked as if about to be struck by
apoplexy. Prosper was as pale and motionless as a corpse.
Silent and immovable, they stood glaring at each other with mortal
hatred.
M. Verduret curiously watched these two enemies, with the indifference
and coolness of a philosopher, who, in the most violent outbursts of
human passion, merely sees subjects for meditation and study.
Finally, the silence becoming more and more threatening, he decided to
break it by speaking to the banker:
“I suppose you know, monsieur, that my young relative has just been
released from prison.”
“Yes,” replied M. Fauvel, making an effort to control himself, “yes, for
want of sufficient proof.”
“Exactly so, monsieur, and this want of proof, as stated in the decision
of ‘Not proven,’ ruins the prospects of my relative, and compels him to
leave here at once for America.”
M. Fauvel’s features relaxed as if he had been relieved of some fearful
agony.
“Ah, he is going away,” he said, “he is going abroad.”
There was no mistaking the resentful, almost insulting intonation of the
words, “going away!”