"Then I shall have to find some expedient."
She looked at me probingly. The windows were open, and we heard the cries of the newsboys in the streets.
"Hear!" she said; "they are shouting of victories."
"You mean," said the Vicomtesse slowly, "that they will shout of victories until the Prussians are in sight of Paris."
"The Parisians will pay two sous for good news, and nothing at all for evil tidings," I answered.
Thus we lived for some weeks, through the heat of July--and I could neither leave Paris nor give thought to Charles Miste. That scoundrel was, however, singularly quiet. No cheque had been cashed, and we knew, at all events, that he had realised none of his stolen wealth. On the tenth of July the Ollivier Ministry fell. Things were going from bad to worse. At the end of the month the Emperor quitted St. Cloud to take command of the army. He never came to France again.
"Repousser sa croix, c'est l'appesantir."
During the first week of August the excitement in Paris reached its greatest height, and culminated on the Saturday after the battle of Weissenburg. Of this defeat John Turner had, as I believe, the news before any other in Paris. Indeed, the evil tidings came to the city from the English _Times_. The stout banker, whose astuteness I had never doubted, displayed at this time a number of those qualities--such as courage, cool-headedness and foresight--to which we undoubtedly owe our greatness in the world. We are, as our neighbours say, a nation of shopkeepers, but we keep a rifle under the counter. A man may prove his courage in the counting-house as effectually as on the field of battle.
"These," I said to Turner, "are stirring times. I suppose you are very anxious."
I had passed before the Bourse in coming to the Avenue d'Antan, and had, as I spoke, a lively recollection of the white-faced and panic-stricken financiers assembled there. For one franc that these men had at stake, it was probable that John Turner had a thousand.
"Yes--I am anxious," he said, quietly. "These are stirring times, as you say; they stimulate the appetite wonderfully, and, I think, help the digestion."
As he spoke a clerk came into the room without knocking--his eyes bright with excitement. He gave John Turner a note, which that stout gentleman read at a glance, and rose from the breakfast table.