"In short," said Uncle Cyprien with resentment, "you are opposed to this project!..." Schleifmann sneered and shrugged his shoulders. "But your project doesn't exist, it's pure folly.... Do as you please.... But I beg you never to tell me a word of this ludicrous piece of madness." Cyprien remained silent, choked by anger. He resented as much the Galician's disdainful tone as the tenacity with which he dampened the sparkling hopes of riches which the marquis had lit before him. His anti-Semitic convictions were now directed, for the first time in ten years, against Schleifmann. In the stubbornness of his old comrade he discovered much less a proof of friendship than a characteristic of the Jewish pride of which his most favorite authors quoted monstrous examples! Cyprien remained taciturn throughout the evening, recalling to himself all their names. In these conditions the meeting soon languished and the two friends parted coldly an hour sooner than usual. The next day M. Raindal, the younger, proved unable to resist the itching he felt to know the quotations on the financial market. He bought an evening paper and took refuge in the Luxemburg in order to read the reports in peace. But he was unused to them and found the transversal lines, the perpendicular columns, the quotations of "to-day" and those of "yesterday" perplexingly confusing. It was only after ten minutes of effort that he discovered the place where the "advance" was given. Everywhere on the gold mines it was considerable and almost general, showing differences of fifteen, twenty, thirty and even fifty francs. The stocks sold up in the same way on the next day and the day after. Uncle Cyprien made a mental calculation of the amounts which he would have already pocketed but for that mule of a Schleifmann. The dinners at the brasserie daily showed more signs of these accumulated grudges. At last, on the fifth day, M. Raindal could contain himself no longer. At half-past twelve he went home to dress and half-an-hour later stepped out of a cab in the rue de Bourgogne in front of M. de Meuze's door. The marquis in a brown coat and with a pipe in his mouth was still at his dining-table when Cyprien was ushered in. "How do you do, my dear M. Raindal!" he exclaimed, as he pushed his chair back. "I am delighted to see you. I am receiving you without any ceremony.... You will have coffee with me, won't you? A cigar?" he added, holding out a box of fat Havanas. "If you please," the ex-official replied.