The guests hurried into the dining-room. Everything there bore
indelible marks of yesterday's excess, it is true, but there were at
any rate some traces of ordinary, rational existence, such traces as
may be found in a sick man's dying struggles. And so the revelry was
laid away and buried, like carnival of a Shrove Tuesday, by masks
wearied out with dancing, drunk with drunkenness, and quite ready to
be persuaded of the pleasures of lassitude, lest they should be forced
to admit their exhaustion.
As soon as these bold spirits surrounded the capitalist's
breakfast-table, Cardot appeared. He had left the rest to make a night
of it after the dinner, and finished the evening after his own fashion
in the retirement of domestic life. Just now a sweet smile wandered
over his features. He seemed to have a presentiment that there would be
some inheritance to sample and divide, involving inventories and
engrossing; an inheritance rich in fees and deeds to draw up, and
something as juicy as the trembling fillet of beef in which their host
had just plunged his knife.
"Oh, ho! we are to have breakfast in the presence of a notary," cried
Cursy.
"You have come here just at the right time," said the banker,
indicating the breakfast; "you can jot down the numbers, and initial
off all the dishes.
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