Then, with affable good-nature, turning to Jordan, who remained silent and pale, feeling supremely uncomfortable, he said: 'Well, I will advance you the five hundred francs. You ought to have asked me for them in the first place.'
He had seated himself at his table to sign a cheque, when he stopped to reflect. He remembered the letter which he had received from Busch, the visit which he had to make to him, and which he had been postponing from day to day in his annoyance over the nasty affair that he scented. Why should he not at once go to the Rue Feydeau, taking advantage of the opportunity now that he had a pretext for going there?
'Listen,' said he, 'I know this rascal through and through. It is better that I should go to pay him in person, to see if I can't get your notes back at half price.'
Marcelle's eyes now sparkled with gratitude. 'Oh, Monsieur Saccard, how kind you are!' she exclaimed. And, addressing her husband, she added: 'You see, you big silly, that Monsieur Saccard has not eaten us!'
Yielding to an irresistible impulse, he threw his arms round her neck and kissed her, as though to thank her for being more energetic and skilful than himself in these material difficulties which paralysed his energy.
'No, no!' said Saccard, when the young man finally pressed his hand, 'the pleasure is mine; it is very pleasant to see you love one another so much. Go home, and be easy.'
In a couple of minutes his brougham, which was waiting for him, conveyed him to the Rue Feydeau, through muddy Paris, amid the jostling of umbrellas and splashing of puddles. But once upstairs he rang in vain at the dirty old door, on which was a plate bearing the inscription 'Disputed Claims' in big letters. It did not open, there was no sound within, and he was on the point of going away, when, in his keen vexation, he shook it violently with his fist. Then a halting step was heard, and at last Sigismond appeared.
'What! it is you! I thought that it was my brother, who had come up again and forgotten his key. I never answer the door myself. Oh, he won't be long, and you can wait for him if you wish to see him.'
With the same painful, unsteady step he returned, followed by Saccard, into the room which he occupied overlooking the Place de la Bourse. It was still quite light at that height above the mist, whence the rain was pouring into the streets. The room was frigidly bare with its little iron bedstead, its table and two chairs, and its few shelves of books. A small stove stood in front of the chimney-piece, and the fire, carelessly looked after, forgotten, had just gone out.