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Updated: May 28, 2025
Did he love Mademoiselle de Cernay? This question, asked in a trembling voice and with a constrained smile, found the Prince quite calm. He answered lightly that Mademoiselle de Cernay was a very agreeable partner, but that he had never dreamed of offering her his homage. He had other projects in his head.
"Serge!" cried Mademoiselle de Cernay, clinging to him whom she loved so fondly. But the Prince was as quickly calmed as he had been carried away. He gently put Jeanne aside. "You see," he said with a smile, "how unreasonable we are and how easily we might commit an irreparable folly. And yet our means will not allow us." "In mercy do not leave me!" pleaded Jeanne, in a tone of despair.
But Mademoiselle Desvarennes was not thinking of Mademoiselle de Cernay; she had just raised the heavy door curtain, and calling to Jeanne, "Are you coming?" passed into the drawing-room: It was indeed Prince Serge, who was expected by Cayrol with impatience, by Madame Desvarennes with silent irritation, by Pierre with deep anguish.
Mademoiselle de Cernay had a peculiar wrinkle on her brow whenever she saw Micheline passing before her hanging on the arm of the Prince, which tormented him. They were obliged to meet at table in the evening, for Serge and Cayrol dined at the Rue Saint-Dominique. The Prince talked in whispers to Micheline, but every now and then he was obliged to speak to Jeanne.
Micheline had thrown herself with a burst of tenderness into her mother's arms. Serge was deeply affected by the young girl's affection for him, when a trembling hand touched his arm. He turned round. Jeanne de Cernay was before him, pale and wan; her eyes sunken into her head like two black nails, and her lips tightened by a violent contraction. The Prince stood thunderstruck at the sight of her.
The plan which she had conceived at Cernay that terrible night of the marriage when Jeanne had confided in her, remained for her to execute. By opening her purse widely to the Prince, she would help him in his vice. And she would infallibly succeed in separating Serge and Micheline. But the mistress checked herself.
The Count de Cernay, the last representative of a noble race, had just died of consumption, brought on by reckless living, leaving nothing behind him but debts and a little girl two years old. Her mother, an Italian singer and his mistress, had left him one morning without troubling herself about the child. Everything was to be sold, by order of the Court.
He hardened himself against his impressions, and replied, with insinuating sweetness: "Why do you speak of desertion, when a good man who loves you fondly, and who possesses a handsome fortune, wishes to marry you?" Mademoiselle de Cernay raised her head, hastily. "So, it is you who advise me to marry Monsieur Cayrol? Is there nothing revolting to you in the idea that I should follow your advice?
From the little boudoir sounds of music were occasionally heard, when Micheline's nervous hand struck a louder chord on her piano. She was there, anxiously awaiting some one or something. Jeanne de Cernay, stretched in an easy-chair, her head leaning on her hand, was dreaming. During the past three weeks the young girl had changed.
"You have done me the honor to call me, Mademoiselle," said he, remaining on the threshold of the drawing-room. "Am I fortunate enough at length to have found favor in your eyes?" "Here is my hand," said Mademoiselle de Cernay, simply tendering him her white taper fingers, which he covered with kisses. Madame Desvarennes had come in behind the banker. She uttered a joyous exclamation.
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