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The duke looked at Marianne, who, as white as a corpse, instead of becoming indignant, entreated and tried to lead her husband away from this man, as if they were in the presence of grave danger. "Ah! bless me!" cried José, "you will explain to me !" "That is very easy! I was in want of money. The Dujarrier furnished me with a little for that affair. She is too niggardly. I ask madame for some.
"Claire Dujarrier! The very thing! Why not?" thought Marianne. She had been introduced to the ex-danseuse by Guy de Lissac. He was considered as one of Claire's old lovers. They quarrelled when the old dame had heard one of Guy's bons mots that had become familiar at the Club: "When I see her, I always feel a slight emotion: she recalls my youth to me! But alas! not hers!"
And then with a sort of swaggering air like that of a fencing-master or tippler, searching for some droll expressions, cowardly avenging himself by jests ejected like so many streams of tobacco, against this woman who had just insulted him, who spoke of blackmail and the police, and of thrusting the miserable fellow out of doors, he told everything that he knew; Marianne's neediness, her weariness, her loves, the Dujarrier connection, the renting of the Hôtel Vanda, the Vaudrey paper and its renewals, his own foolishness as a too artless and tender, good sort of fellow, relying on Claire Dujarrier's word, and not reserving to himself so much per cent in the affair!
An English writer who heard a great deal of her and who saw her often about this time writes that there was nothing wonderful about her except "her beauty and her impudence." She had no talent nor any of the graces which make women attractive; yet many men of talent raved about her. The clever young journalist, Dujarrier, who assisted Emile Girardin, was her lover in Paris.
She suddenly straightened herself under this anxiety, reassured, moreover, and spurred on as she was by the Dujarrier herself, who said as she shrugged her shoulders: "When a woman like you has a man like Vaudrey, a minister, she has her nest lined." Sulpice was not the man long to resist so refined a Parisienne as Marianne.
The dog almost leaped at Marianne's throat while Claire, rising, threw herself on her neck. "Ah! dear little one! How pleased I am! What chance brings you?" Marianne looked at the Dujarrier.
Claire Dujarrier advanced the hundred thousand francs demanded by Mademoiselle Kayser, and which she had apparently in reality she took them from her own funds borrowed from Adolphe Gochard, her lover, who had not a sou, and in whose favor Vaudrey signed in regular legal form, a bill of exchange at three months' date value received in cash.
Marianne had thanked her at the time, and had forgotten all about it till now, when in the anguish of her pursuit she recalled the name and features of Claire Dujarrier as from the memories of yesterday.
The tumid eyes of Claire Dujarrier resembled lighted coals. She pressed kiss after kiss of her painted lips on the photograph and reverently laid it on the table. Marianne almost pitied this half-senile love, the courtesan's terrifying, last love. She was, however, too content either to trouble herself, or even to reflect upon it. She was wild with joy.
The Dujarrier had stopped and greeted Marianne, but as she remarked herself, a thousand bows and scrapes were thrown away, for Rosas had hardly noticed her with a glacial look. "Why do you return that woman's salutation?" he at once asked Marianne. "I need her. She has done me services." "That is surprising! I thought her incapable of doing anything but harm."
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