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Updated: June 6, 2025
"I feel at liberty to tell you that the place is not far away, and the journey thence will not fatigue you," said the president, with the air of one who has long known what she has not wished to reveal heretofore. "The question of fatigue should not discourage us when it is a matter of doing good," said M. Desvanneaux.
On an open register in the reception-room were inscribed the names of all those persons who had called to express their interest in Mademoiselle de Vermont: Constantin Lenaieff, the Lisieux, the Nointels, Edmond Delorme, the Baron de Samoreau, and others. Only the Desvanneaux had shown no sign of life. Their Christian charity did not extend so far as that.
"I shall take good care not to fail to call," earnestly replied the fair Lady Bountiful. She telephoned immediately to her head-groom, ordering ham to bring around her brougham at three o'clock. At the same hour that the elegant carriage of Zibeline was conducting her to the Hotel de Montgeron, M. Desvanneaux descended from a modest fiacre at the gate of the hotel occupied by Eugenie Gontier.
The late-comer presented her card of invitation to the proper functionary, and went across the enclosure toward the ladies' salon. "Ah! there is Zibeline!" cried Madame Desvanneaux, with an affected air. "Do you know her?" she inquired of the Duchesse de Montgeron. "Not yet," the Duchess replied.
If a woman's real self is revealed in her epistolary style, finesse, good-humor, and sprightliness were characterised in this note. Zibeline's finesse had divined Henri's self-deception; her good-humor sought to dissipate it; and her sprightliness was evidenced by her allusions to M. Desvanneaux and the loss of her horse.
Monsieur de Perolles knows that I have promised to build our Orphan Asylum at a certain distance from Paris, and hardly three weeks remain to me before I must hand over the property. If I am not ready on the day appointed, Monsieur Desvanneaux will be sure to seize my furniture, and I could not invite you any more to dinner, Messieurs!
But behind your back, in the shadow, you have already massed against you various rejected swains, the Desvanneaux of the coulisses, jealous of a preference which wounds their own vanity, and the more ready to throw discredit were they able upon a man of your valor, because they are better armed against him with the logic of facts." "What logic, in heaven's name?"
"Do you guarantee the solvency of this person?" demanded M. Desvanneaux, who saw the project of the kermess falling to the ground. "It is one of my rich clients; but I have orders not to reveal her name unless her offer is accepted." The unanimity with which all hands were raised did not even give time to put the question. "Her name?" demanded the Duchess.
As he was not so curious as the Desvanneaux, it mattered little to him to what place they took him, so long as he should find Zibeline at the end of the journey. At the appointed hour the brother and sister drove to the Gare du Nord. The Duke, a director of the road, who had been obliged to attend a convocation of the Council until noon, had preceded them.
The first victory was in favor of Henri, who, at the end of a hand dealt by Constantin Lenaieff, had won about three hundred Louis. Just at this moment the two women returned, accompanied by Desvanneaux. "I had some difficulty in persuading our charming friends to return," said he; "Mademoiselle Dorville was determined that some one should escort her to her own house."
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