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I know all about that! I mean his relation to Madame Desvarennes." "Zounds! If we were in Venice in the days of the Aqua-Toffana, the sbirri and the bravi " "What rubbish!" interrupted Cayrol, shrugging his shoulders. "Let me continue," said the secretary, "and you can shrug your shoulders afterward if you like.
Cayrol thought the mistress was alluding to the money he had already lent, and his fears vanished. Madame Desvarennes would surely repay it. "So you are cutting off his resources?" he asked. "Completely," answered the mistress. "He takes too much liberty, that young gentleman. He was wrong to forget that I hold the purse-strings.
Madame Desvarennes entered. At the first glance, the men noticed the traces of the emotion she had just experienced. They rose and waited in silence. When the mistress was in a bad humor everybody gave way to her. It was the custom. She nodded to Cayrol, and walked up and down the office, absorbed in her own thoughts. Suddenly stopping, she said: "Marechal, prepare Prince Panine's account."
The officer bowed respectfully to the mistress, who was bending over Micheline. "Please to withdraw, Madame. You have already suffered too much," said he. "I understand your legitimate grief. If I need any information, this gentleman will give it to me." Madame Desvarennes arose, and, without bending under the burden, she bore away on her bosom her daughter, regained.
Mademoiselle Desvarennes was proud of this reserve, and thought it was tact and good breeding on the part of the Prince, without doubting that what she thought reserve in the man of the world was the prudence of an anxious lover. Jeanne endured the tortures of Hades.
Madame Desvarennes, who used every means of gaining information on the subject, even to the gossip of the servants, heard that the sums were enormous. No doubt they were exaggerated, but the fact remained the same. The Prince was losing.
And Madame Desvarennes would be alone in her corner, abandoned like a poor dog, and would die of despair and anger. What other course then? She must dissemble, mask her face with indifference, if possible with tenderness, and undertake the difficult task of separating Micheline from the man whom she adored. It was quite a feat of strategy to plan.
Cayrol's face brightened. "You are right," he said. "Yes, as ever, you are right. You must excuse rile, I do not know how to talk to women. Rebuke her and put a little sense in her head. But don't leave her; she is fit to commit any folly." Madame Desvarennes smiled. "Be easy," she answered. And making a sign to Cayrol, who was leaving the room, she returned to Jeanne.
She remained silent for a little while, as if considering; then coming to a resolution, and turning to Cayrol, she said: "Where is Pierre staying?" "At the Hotel du Louvre," replied the banker. "Well, I'm going there." Madame Desvarennes rang the bell violently. "My bonnet, my cloak, and the carriage," she said, and with a friendly nod to the two men, she went out quickly.
One day when Madame Desvarennes arrived at Cernay, she was surprised to see the greensward bordering the woods marked out with white stakes. She asked inquiringly what these stakes meant? Micheline answered in an easy tone: "Ah! you saw them? That is the track for training. We made Mademoiselle de Cernay gallop there to-day.
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