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Updated: May 18, 2025
The letter of introduction to Madame Vauchelet had remained unpresented. The sense of solitude, combined for the first time with that of freedom, was too delightful to forego. One must have time to realize and appreciate the sudden calm and serenity; the sudden absence of claims and obstructions and harassing criticisms.
An occasional letter from Madame Vauchelet or Jouffroy, who mourned and wailed over Hadria's surrender of her work, served to remind her that it had once been actual and living.
M. Thillard reminded Madame Temperley of her kind permission to present to her M. Jouffroy. Madame Temperley was charmed and flattered by Monsieur's visit. It was an exciting afternoon. Madame Vauchelet was eager to hear the opinion of the great man, and anxious for Hadria to make a good impression.
"Please write the letter and I will tell you some day what I want it for." "Nothing very mad, I hope?" "No, only a little judiciously mad." "Well, there is Madame Bertaux, in the Avenue Kleber, but her you know already. Let me see. Oh yes, Madame Vauchelet, a charming woman; very kind and very fond of young people. She is about sixty; a widow; her husband was in the diplomatic service."
Madame Vauchelet was untiring in her efforts to help and advise. She initiated Hadria into the picturesque mysteries of Parisian housekeeping. It was amusing to go to the shops and markets with this shrewd Frenchwoman, and very enlightening as to the method of living cheaply and well.
"Ah, mon Dieu!" cried Madame Vauchelet, "if men had to endure in the next world that which they have made women suffer in this that would be an atrocious justice!" Stubbornly Hadria sent her packets to the publishers; the publishers as firmly returned them. She had two sets flying now, like tennis balls, she wrote to Miss Du Prel: one set across the Channel.
Since the landlady difficulty was so serious, and made personal superintendence necessary, it seemed as if one might as well have the greater comfort and independence of this more home-like arrangement. Madame Vauchelet recommended an excellent woman who would cook and market, and, with Hannah's help, easily do all that was necessary.
Hadria felt that she ought to go and see Madame Vauchelet; it was more than a week since she had called, and the kind old friend was always gently pained at an absence of that length. Then there was an article to finish, and she ought really to write to Dunaghee and Henriette and well the rest must wait. Several other calls were also more than due, but it was useless even to consider those to-day.
On one sunny afternoon, when Hadria had returned, thrilled and inspired by a magnificent orchestral performance at the Châtelet, she found Madame Vauchelet, M. Thillard, and the great Jouffroy waiting in her salon. Jouffroy was small, eccentric, fiery, with keen eager eyes, thick black hair, and overhanging brows.
Hadria began to think wistfully of a more permanent ménage in this entrancing capital, where there were still worlds within worlds to explore. She questioned Madame Vauchelet as to the probable cost of a femme de ménage. Madame quickly ran through some calculations and pronounced a sum alluringly small.
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