The Captain made a gesture of embarrassment: 'Oh, write!' he retorted, 'you know very well that I don't write, it is not to my taste. But it's true that I give Lebleu some ideas, some notes, you know, on scraps of paper, and he gets somebody or other to write articles based on them.' Then, as the judge still pursed his lips disappprovingly, the captain went on: 'What else can one do? One fights with such weapons as one has. If those cursed Madagascar fevers had not compelled me to send in my papers, I should have fallen sabre and not pen in hand on those idealogues who are demolishing everything with their criminal utopian schemes. Ah! yes indeed, it would relieve me to be able to bleed a dozen of them!' Lucile, short and _mignonne_, had hitherto remained silent, with her usual keen enigmatical smile upon her lips. But now she turned so plainly ironical a glance upon her husband, that great man with the victorious moustaches, that the judge easily detected in it all the merry disdain she felt for a swashbuckler whom her little hands toyed with as a cat may toy with a mouse. 'Oh, Charles!' said she, 'don't be wicked, don't say things that frighten me!' But just then she met her father's glance, and feared lest her true feelings should be divined; so putting on her candid, virginal air again, she added: 'Isn't it wrong of Charles to get so heated, father dear? We ought to live quietly in our little corner.' But Gaume detected that she was still jeering. 'It is all very sad and very cruel,' said he by way of conclusion, virtually speaking to himself. 'What can one decide, what can one do when all deceive and devour one another?' He rose painfully, and took his hat and gloves in order to go to Delaveau's. Then in spite of everything, when once he was in the street, and Lucile--of whom he was so fond, whatever the sufferings she caused him--took hold of his arm, he enjoyed a moment of delightful forgetfulness as after a lovers' quarrel. Meantime, when noon struck at the Abyss, Delaveau joined Fernande in the little _salon_ opening into the dining-room of the pavilion built by the Qurignons, which was now the home of the manager of the works. It was a rather small dwelling; for, apart from the dining and drawing rooms and the domestic offices, the ground floor only contained one other apartment, which Delaveau had made his private room, and which communicated by a wooden gallery with the general offices of the works. Then on the first and second floors were some bed-rooms. Since a young woman passionately fond of luxury had been living in the house, carpets and hangings had imparted to the old floors and dark walls some little of the splendour that she dreamt of. Boisgelin was the first guest to arrive, and came unaccompanied. 'What!' exclaimed Fernande, as if greatly distressed, 'is not Suzanne with you?'