"But, my darling, the means you offer me are too slow; you make me
lose the fruits of ten years' work, and the enormous sums of money
which my laboratory represents. There," he said, pointing towards the
garret, "are our real resources."
Marguerite walked towards the door, saying:--
"Father, you must choose."
"Ah! my daughter, you are very hard," he replied, sitting down in an
armchair and allowing her to leave him.
The next morning, on coming downstairs, Marguerite learned from
Lemulquinier that Monsieur Claes had gone out. This simple
announcement turned her pale; her face was so painfully significant
that the old valet remarked hastily:--
"Don't be troubled, mademoiselle; monsieur said he would be back at
eleven o'clock to breakfast. He didn't go to bed all night. At two in
the morning he was still standing in the parlor, looking through the
window at the laboratory. I was waiting up in the kitchen; I saw him;
he wept; he is in trouble. Here's the famous month of July when the
sun is able to enrich us all, and if you only would--"
"Enough," said Marguerite, divining the thoughts that must have
assailed her father's mind.
A phenomenon which often takes possession of persons leading sedentary
lives had seized upon Balthazar; his life depended, so to speak, on
the places with which it was identified; his thought was so wedded to
his laboratory and to the house he lived in that both were
indispensable to him,--just as the Bourse becomes a necessity to a
stock-gambler, to whom the public holidays are so much lost time.
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