“Well, isn’t it perfectly natural?” said M. Desclavettes.
“It seems to me more than natural,” insisted Mme. Desclavettes, “that a man should be anxious to preserve from ruin his wife and children.”
“Of course,” put in M. Favoral.
Stepping resolutely toward her father:
“Have you, then, taken such precautions yourself?” demanded Mlle. Gilberte.
“No,” answered the cashier of the Mutual Credit. And, after a moment of hesitation:
“But I am running no risks,” he added. “In business, and when a man may be ruined by a mere rise or fall in stocks, he would be insane indeed who did not secure bread for his family, and, above all, means for himself, wherewith to commence again. The Baron de Thaller did not act otherwise; and, should he meet with a disaster, Mme. de Thaller would still have a handsome fortune.”
M. Desormeaux was, perhaps, the only one not to admit freely that theory, and not to accept that ever-decisive reason, “Others do it.”
But he was a philosopher, and thought it silly not to be of his time. He therefore contented himself with saying:
“Hum! M. de Thaller’s creditors might not think that mode of proceeding entirely regular.”