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"No, not at all," she answered with momentary energy; and, smiling at her husband, she added, "I should like to go to sleep." Suddenly there came a sound of a horse galloping towards them. Victor d'Aiglemont dropped his wife's hand and turned to watch the bend in the road.
Sometimes, indeed, a whole tragedy grows out of a single gesture; the tone in which a few words were spoken rends a whole life in two; a glance into indifferent eyes is the deathblow of the gladdest love; and, unhappily, such gestures and such words were only too familiar to Mme. d'Aiglemont she had met so many glances that wound the soul. No, there was nothing in those memories to bid her hope.
"Pooh!" returned d'Aiglemont, "these heroic exploits all depend upon the woman in the case, and it certainly was not for one that I know, that poor Arthur came by his death." Between the Seine and the little river Loing lies a wide flat country, skirted on the one side by the Forest of Fontainebleau, and marked out as to its southern limits by the towns of Moret, Montereau, and Nemours.
He went to the Marquise d'Espard's, to the Duchesses de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, and de Chaulieu, to the Marquises d'Aiglemont and de Listomere, to Mme. de Serizy's, to the Opera, to the embassies and elsewhere.
M. and Mme. d'Aiglemont went their separate ways, leading their life in the world, meeting each other more frequently abroad than at home, a refinement upon divorce, in which many a marriage in the great world is apt to end. One evening, strange to say, found husband and wife in their own drawing-room.
Afterwards, if you think of a career, the time and the money will not have been thrown away. The late lamented d'Aiglemont had more sense than people credited him with, which is more than can be said of some of us." "A young fellow that starts with an assured income of eighteen thousand livres at one-and-twenty is lost," said Couture.
For a young man a woman of thirty has irresistible attractions. There is nothing more natural, nothing better established, no human tie of stouter tissue than the heart-deep attachment between such a woman as the Marquise d'Aiglemont and such a man as Charles de Vandenesse. You can see examples of it every day in the world.
Mme. d'Aiglemont looked at her daughter, and rose as if to go to her, but a terrible convulsion passed over her face, and all that could be read in it was relentless severity. "That will do, Helene," she said. "Go into the other room, and leave off crying." "What can she have done, poor child!" asked the notary, thinking to appease the mother's anger and to stop Helene's tears at one stroke.
D'Aiglemont, at a hint from his cousin Beaudenord, besought Rastignac to accept ten per cent upon his million if he would undertake to convert it into shares in a canal which is still to make, for Nucingen worked things with the Government to such purpose that the concessionaires find it to their interest not to finish their scheme.
All its mute appeal was understood. "Good-bye, then, Monsieur d'Aiglemont, we shall meet in the Bois de Boulogne."
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