Eva sprang up suddenly. “You shan’t speak of him to me or praise him, wretched woman.” Her cheeks glowed, and the brightly mocking tone in which she often spoke to Susan became menacing. “_Golpes para besos_,” Susan murmured in Spanish. “Blows for kisses.” She arose in order to comb Eva’s hair and braid it for the night. The next day Crammon appeared. “I found you one whose laughter puts to shame the laughter of the muleteer of Cordova,” he said with mock solemnity. “Why is he rejected?” His heart bled. Yet he wooed her for his friend. Much as he loved and admired Denis Lay, yet Christian was closer to him. Christian was his discovery, of which he was vain, and his hero. Eva looked at him with eyes that glittered, and replied: “It is true that he knows how to laugh like that muleteer of Cordova, but he has no more culture of the heart than that same fellow. And that, my dear man, is not enough.” “And what is to become of us?” sighed Crammon. “You may follow us to England,” Eva said cheerfully. “I’m going to dance at His Majesty’s Theatre. Eidolon can be my page. He can learn to practise reverence, and not to chaffer for horses when beautiful poems are being read to me. Tell him that.” Crammon sighed again. Then he took her hand, and devoutly kissed the tips of her fingers. “I shall deliver your message, sweet Ariel,” he said. XII Cardillac and Eva fell out, and that robbed the man of his last support. The danger with which he was so rashly playing ensnared him; the abysses lured him on. The external impetus to his downfall was furnished by a young engineer who had invented a hydraulic device. Cardillac had persuaded him with magnificent promises to let him engage in the practical exploitation of the invention. It was not long before the engineer discovered that he had been cheated of the profits of his labour. Quietly he accumulated evidence against the speculator, unveiled his dishonest dealings, and presented to the courts a series of annihilating charges. Although Cardillac finally offered him five hundred thousand francs if he would withdraw his charges, the outraged accuser remained firm. Other untoward circumstances occurred. The catastrophe became inevitable. On a single forenoon the shares he had issued dropped to almost nothing. In forty-eight hours three hundred millions of francs had been lost. Innumerable well-established fortunes plunged like avalanches into nothingness, eighteen hundred mechanics and shop-keepers lost all they had in the world, twenty-seven great firms went into bankruptcy, senators and deputies of the Republic were sucked down in the whirlpool, and under the attacks of the opposition the very administration shook. Felix Imhof hurried to Paris to save whatever was possible out of the crash. Although he had suffered painful losses, he was ecstatic over the grandiose spectacle which Cardillac’s downfall presented to the world.