As for Sidonie, he no longer thought of her. Let no one be astonished at that abrupt mental rupture. Those two superficial beings had nothing to attach them securely to each other. Georges was incapable of receiving lasting impressions unless they were continually renewed; Sidonie, for her part, had no power to inspire any noble or durable sentiment. It was one of those intrigues between a cocotte and a coxcomb, compounded of vanity and of wounded self-love, which inspire neither devotion nor constancy, but tragic adventures, duels, suicides which are rarely fatal, and which end in a radical cure. Perhaps, had he seen her again, he might have had a relapse of his disease; but the impetus of flight had carried Sidonie away so swiftly and so far that her return was impossible. At all events, it was a relief for him to be able to live without lying; and the new life he was leading, a life of hard work and self-denial, with the goal of success in the distance, was not distasteful to him. Luckily; for the courage and determination of both partners were none too much to put the house on its feet once more.
The poor house of Fromont had sprung leaks on all sides. So Pere Planus still had wretched nights, haunted by the nightmare of notes maturing and the ominous vision of the little blue man. But, by strict economy, they always succeeded in paying.
Soon four Risler Presses were definitively set up and used in the work of the factory. People began to take a deep interest in them and in the wall-paper trade. Lyons, Caen, Rixbeim, the great centres of the industry, were much disturbed concerning that marvellous “rotary and dodecagonal” machine. One fine day the Prochassons appeared, and offered three hundred thousand francs simply for an interest in the patent rights.
“What shall we do?” Fromont Jeune asked Risler Aine.
The latter shrugged his shoulders indifferently.
“Decide for yourself. It doesn’t concern me. I am only an employe.”
The words, spoken coldly, without anger, fell heavily upon Fromont’s bewildered joy, and reminded him of the gravity of a situation which he was always on the point of forgetting.
But when he was alone with his dear Madame “Chorche,” Risler advised her not to accept the Prochassons’ offer.
“Wait,—don’t be in a hurry. Later you will have a better offer.”
He spoke only of them in that affair in which his own share was so glorious. She felt that he was preparing to cut himself adrift from their future.