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Updated: June 15, 2025
Madame Desvarennes thought it was most interesting; she liked workers, and considered that the richer people were, the more reason they had to work. Herzog had allowed his daughter to please herself and said nothing. Springtime had come, and fine weather, yet Micheline's health did not improve. She did not suffer, but a sort of languor had come over her.
A great sadness stole over the young man's spirit; he was disgusted with life and hated humanity. What was to become of him now? His life was shattered; a heart like his could not love twice, and Micheline's image was too deeply engraven on it for it ever to be effaced. Of what use was all the trouble he had taken to raise himself above others?
Madame Desvarennes, it is sad to say, felt herself more mistress of her child when she was a widow. She was jealous of Micheline's affections, and each kiss the child gave her father seemed to the mother to be robbed from her. With this fierce tenderness, she preferred solitude around this beloved being. At this time Madame Desvarennes was really in the zenith of womanly splendor.
For the first time she understood her betrothed, felt how much he loved her, and regretted not having known it before. If Pierre had spoken like that before going away, who knows? Micheline's feelings might have been quickened. No doubt she would have loved him. It would have come naturally. But Pierre had kept the secret of his passion for the young girl to himself.
"Well," said Micheline, with a faint smile, "as you are so kindly disposed, promise that we shall leave for Paris this week. The season is far advancing. All your friends will have returned. It will not be such a great sacrifice which I ask from you." "Willingly," said Serge, surprised at Micheline's sudden resolution.
And now he felt that his only hope of safety was in Micheline's love for him. But first of all he must go and see if Herzog had returned, and ascertain the real facts of the position in regard to the Universal Credit Company. Herzog occupied a little house on the Boulevard Haussmann, which he had hired furnished from some Americans. The loud luxury of the Yankees had not frightened him.
Once in the clutches of the demon of play, he would neglect his wife, and the mother might regain a portion of the ground she had lost. Micheline's fortune once broken into, she would interpose between her daughter and son-in-law. She would make him pull up, and holding him tightly by her purse strings, would lead him whither she liked.
There were eight splendid carriage-horses, a pair of charming ponies bought especially for Micheline's use, but which the young wife had not been able to make up her mind to drive herself four saddle-horses, upon which every morning about eight o'clock, when the freshness of night had perfumed the Bois de Boulogne, the young people took their ride round the lake.
Her placid face did not once betray the anguish of her heart during those three weeks. The term fixed by Madame Desvarennes with the Prince had expired that morning. And the severity with which the mistress had received the Minister of War's Financial Secretary was a symptom of the agitation in which the necessity of coming to a decision placed Micheline's mother.
"Why did you leave for England three weeks ago, without seeing me and without speaking to me?" "What could I have said to you?" replied the Prince, with an air of fatigue and dejection. Jeanne flashed a glance brilliant as lightning: "You could have told me that you had just asked for Micheline's hand!" "That would have been brutal!" "It would have been honest!
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