of Maxime, of his liberty, of their mutual joys! Amid the bitter reproaches which she heaped upon herself, an idea suddenly occurred to her that put the finishing touch to her despair: she ought to have spoken of the fifty thousand francs to her Aunt Elisabeth on the stairs. What had she been thinking of? The kind woman would perhaps have lent her the money, or at least have helped her. She was leaning forward to tell her coachman to drive back to the Rue Saint-Louis-en-l’Île, when she thought she again saw the image of her father slowly crossing the solemn darkness of the big drawingroom. She would never have the courage to return immediately to that room. What should she say to explain this second visit? And, at the bottom of her heart, she felt she had no longer even the courage to mention the matter to Aunt Elisabeth. She told her coachman to drive her to the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonnière.
Mme. Sidonie uttered a cry of delight when she saw her opening the discreetly-curtained door of the shop. She was there by accident, she was just going out to run to the court where she was suing a customer. But she would let judgment go by default, she would try again another day; she was so happy that her sister-in-law had had the kindness to pay her a little visit at last. Renée smiled with an air of embarrassment. Mme. Sidonie positively refused to allow her to stay downstairs; she took her up to her room, by way of the little staircase, after removing the brass knob from the shop-door. She removed and replaced this knob, which was held by a single nail, twenty times a day.
“There, my beauty,” she said, making her sit down on a long-chair, “now we can have a nice chat…. Just fancy, you came in the nick of time. I was coming to see you this evening.”
Renée, who knew the room, experienced that indefinite feeling of uneasiness which a traveller feels on finding that a strip of timber has been felled in a favourite landscape.
“Ah,” she said at last, “you’ve moved the bed, have you not?”
“Yes,” the lace-dealer replied, quietly, “one of my customers prefers it facing the mantelpiece. It was she too who advised me to have red curtains.”
“That’s what I was thinking, the curtains used not to be red…. A very common colour, red.”
And she put up her eyeglass, and looked round this room that displayed the luxury of a big furnished hotel. On the mantelshelf she saw some long hairpins which had certainly not come from Mme. Sidonie’s meagre chignon. In the place where the bed used to stand, the wallpaper was all torn, discoloured, and soiled by the mattresses. The business-woman had indeed endeavoured to hide this eyesore behind the back of two armchairs: but these backs were rather low, and Renée’s eyes became fixed on this worn strip of paper.
“Have you something to tell me?” she asked.
“Yes, it’s a whole story,” said Mme. Sidonie, folding her hands, with the mien of a gastronome who is about to describe what she has had for dinner. “Just think, M. de Saffré has fallen in love with the beautiful Madame Saccard…. Yes, with your pretty self.”
Renée did not even make a coquettish gesture.
“Why,” said she, “you said he was so smitten with Mme. Michelin.”
“Oh, that’s all over, over and done with… I can prove it to you if you like… haven’t you heard that the little Michelin has attracted the Baron Gouraud? It’s inconceivable. All who know the baron are astounded…. And now, you know, she is on the way to obtain the red riband for her husband!… Ah, she’s a clever woman that. She knows her way about, you can’t teach her anything!”
She said this with an air of admiration not unmingled with regret.
“But to return to M. de Saffré…. He seems to have met you at an actresses’ ball, muffled up in a domino, and he even accuses himself of having rather cavalierly asked you to supper…. Is it true?”
The younger woman was quite surprised.
“Perfectly true,” she murmured; “but who could have told him?”
“Wait, he says that he recognized you later on, after you had left the room, and that he remembered seeing you go out on Maxime’s arm…. Since that time he has been madly in love with you. It has sprouted up in his heart, don’t you see? a fancy…. He has been to see me, to beseech me to make you his apologies…”
“Well, tell him I forgive him,” interrupted Renée, carelessly.
Then, all her anguish returning, she went on:
“Ah, my kind Sidonie, I am terribly worried. I must positively have fifty thousand francs tomorrow morning. I came to talk to you about this. You know people who lend money, you told me.”
The woman of business, offended at the abrupt way in which her sister-in-law broke up her recital, made her wait some time for an answer.
“Yes, certainly, only I advise you first of all to look about among your friends…. Were I in your place I know very well what I should do…. I should just simply apply to M. de Saffré.”
Renée gave a constrained smile.
“But,” she retorted, “that would be hardly proper, considering you pretend that he is so much in love.”
The old woman looked at her with a stare; then her flaccid face melted gently into a smile of affectionate pity.
“You poor dear,” she murmured, “you’ve been crying; don’t deny it, I can see it by your eyes. You must be brave and take life as it comes…. Now then, let me arrange this little matter for you.”
Renée rose, twisting her fingers, making her gloves crack. And she remained standing, completely shaken by a cruel inner struggle. She opened her lips, to accept perhaps, when suddenly the bell rang lightly in the next room. Mme. Sidonie hastily went out, leaving the door ajar, which showed a double row of pianos. Renée next heard a man’s step and the stifled sound of a conversation carried on in an undertone. She mechanically went and examined more closely the yellow streak with which the mattresses had stained the wall. This stain disturbed her, made her feel uncomfortable. Forgetting everything, Maxime, the fifty thousand francs, M. de Saffré, she returned to the side of the bed, reflecting: that bed looked much better placed as it used to be; some women really had no taste; surely, if you went to bed like that, you would have the light in your eyes. And vaguely, in the depths of her memory she saw rising the image of the stranger of the Quai Saint-Paul, her romance in two assignations, that chance amour which she had indulged over there, where the bed used to stand. The wearing away of the wallpaper was all that remained of it. Then the room filled her with uneasiness, and she lost patience with the hum of voices that still went on in the adjoining room.
When Mme. Sidonie returned, circumspectly, opening and closing the door, she made repeated signs with her fingers to induce Renée to speak very low. Then, in her ear:
“You have no idea, this is most fortunate: it is M. de Saffré who has called.”
“You haven’t told him, surely, that I was here?” asked Renée, uneasily.
The woman of business seemed surprised, and very innocently answered:
“I did indeed…. He is waiting for me to tell him to come in. Of course, I said nothing to him of the fifty thousand francs….”
Renée, very pale, had drawn herself up as though struck with a whip. An infinite pride rose to her heart. The
