"I have the proof of it now." As he uttered the awful words "a woman" his voice shook with alarm and was drowned in the great uproar of the factory.

The sounds of the work in progress had a sinister meaning to the unhappy cashier at that moment.

It seemed to him as if all the whirring machinery, the great chimney pouring forth its clouds of smoke, the noise of the workmen at their different tasks--as if all this tumult and bustle and fatigue were for the benefit of a mysterious little being, dressed in velvet and adorned with jewels.
Risler laughed at him and refused to believe him.

He had long been acquainted with his compatriot's mania for detecting in everything the pernicious influence of woman.

And yet Planus's words sometimes recurred to his thoughts, especially in the evening when Sidonie, after all the commotion attendant upon the completion of her toilette, went away to the theatre with Madame Dobson, leaving the apartment empty as soon as her long train had swept across the threshold.