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To whom else would he have spoken with such affectionate respect? In what other hand than hers could he have placed his little Sidonie's, saying: "You will love her dearly, won't you? You are so good. She needs your advice, your knowledge of the world." "Why, my dear Risler," Madame Georges replied, "Sidonie and I are old friends. We have reason to be fond of each other still."
In the beginning there had been much gossip, and various explanations of Sidonie's departure had been made. Some said that she had eloped with a lover, others that Risler had turned her out. The one fact that upset all conjectures was the attitude of the two partners toward each other, apparently as unconstrained as before.
They read it again and again; and for a whole week, until Sidonie's departure, it lay on the mantel-shelf beside Madame Chebe's treasures, the clock under a glass globe and the Empire cups.
A new personage, a new hope came into her life. After Sidonie's arrival, Georges Fromont, who was seldom seen at Savigny except on Sundays, adopted the habit of coming to dinner almost every day. He was a tall, slender, pale youth, of refined appearance.
"Are you going to a wedding, pray?" cries Sigismond, the cashier, behind his grating. And Risler, not without a feeling of pride, replies: "This is my wife's reception day!" Soon everybody in the place knows that it is Sidonie's day; and Pere Achille, who takes care of the garden, is not very well pleased to find that the branches of the winter laurels by the gate are broken.
On the floor below, at the Fromonts', the same comedy was being played, but with a transposition of parts. There it was the young wife who sat by the fire. Every evening, half an hour after Sidonie's departure, the great gate swung open to give passage to the Fromont coupe conveying Monsieur to his club. What would you have? Business has its demands.
Risler, continually engrossed in his press, sometimes remained at his draughting-table until midnight. Fromont passed his days abroad, lunched at his club, was almost never at the factory. He had his reasons for that. Sidonie's proximity disturbed him.
Sech a wishful look took holt o' her when I pictchered her dinner over here at Emarine's. I can't seem to forget it. Goodness! I must go. I'm on my way to Sidonie's, an' she'll be comin' after me if I ain't on time." When Mrs. Eliot had gone limping down the path, Mrs. Endey said: "You got your front room red up, Emarine?" "No; I ain't had time to red up anything." "Well, I'll do it.
And up and down the paths, to the strains of an automatic six-step waltz-a genuine valse de Vaucanson he dragged his breathless mamma-in-law, who stopped at every step to restore to their usual orderliness the dangling ribbons of her hat and the lace trimming of her shawl, her lovely shawl bought for Sidonie's wedding. Poor Risler was intoxicated with joy.
To whom else would he have spoken with such affectionate respect? In what other hand than hers could he have placed his little Sidonie's, saying: "You will love her dearly, won't you? You are so good. She needs your advice, your knowledge of the world." "Why, my dear Risler," Madame Georges replied, "Sidonie and I are old friends. We have reason to be fond of each other still."
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