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Updated: May 22, 2025
She wished to know the name of the man so that she might have an explanation with him, and tell him what she thought of his base conduct. The gentleman should have respectable, well-educated girls to trifle with, should he? And he risked nothing! He should be shown to the door with all honors due to his shameful conduct. Jeanne was still weeping silently at Madame Desvarennes's knee.
"I beseech you," cried Jeanne, madly placing her hands before Madame Desvarennes's face as if to check her scrutiny. "If I had a son," continued the mistress, "I would believe " Suddenly she ceased speaking; she became pale, and bending toward Jeanne, she looked into her very soul. "Is it " she began. "No! no!" interrupted Jeanne, terrified at seeing that the mistress had found out the truth.
She found these flatteries wounding, and thought Madame Desvarennes's preferences for Micheline unjust. All these accumulated grievances made Jeanne conceive the wish one morning of leaving the house where she had been brought up, and where she now felt humiliated.
She had just missed being Madame Desvarennes's heiress, and now Cayrol had taken it into his head to marry her. But that was not all. And when Marechal told Savinien that the fair Jeanne flatly refused to become the wife of Cayrol, there was an outburst of joyful exclamations. She refused! By Jove, she was mad! An unlooked-for marriage for she had not a penny, and had most extravagant notions.
Under the watchful eyes of their mothers, who, decked out in grand array, were seated along the walls, they were gamboling, in spite of the stifling heat, with all the impetuosity of young provincials habitually deprived of the pleasures of the ballroom. Crossing the room, Micheline and Serge reached Madame Desvarennes's boudoir. It was delightfully cool in there.
Woe to those who are guilty of the crime!" Cayrol had fallen, as if thunderstruck, on a chair, with haggard eyes; his voice was gone, and he looked the image of despair. Madame Desvarennes's words came back to him like the refrain of a hated song. To himself he kept repeating, without being able to chase away the one haunting thought: "Her lover, to-night, at your house!"
The gathering was numerous. Merchant-princes came for Madame Desvarennes's sake; bankers for Cayrol's; and the aristocrats and foreign nobility for the Prince's. An assemblage as opposed in ideas as in manners: some valuing only money, others high birth; all proud and elbowing each other with haughty assurance, speaking ill of each other and secretly jealous.
You live in luxury, thanks to Madame Desvarennes's liberality. I can scarcely manage to keep myself with the help of my family. Our present is precarious, our future hazardous. And, suddenly, fortune is within our grasp. We have only to stretch out our hands, and with one stroke we gain the uncontested power which money brings! "Riches, that aim of humanity! Do you understand?
"You see," continued he, showing Madame Desvarennes's nephew the anteroom full of people, "madame has kept all these waiting since this morning, and perhaps she won't see them." "I must see her though," murmured the young man. He reflected a moment, then added: "Is Monsieur Marechal in?" "Yes, sir, certainly. If you will allow me I will announce you." "It is unnecessary."
The simple, lively, and frank young girl attracted him, and he liked to talk with her. On several occasions, at Madame Desvarennes's, he had been her partner. There was through this a certain intimacy between them which he could not extend to the father. Herzog had that faculty, fortunately for him, of never appearing offended at what was said to him.
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