"What a face you are making!" she said. "Are you jealous of the fiery Costeclar, by chance?"
"No, mademoiselle, no!"
"Then, why don't you want him to succeed in his love? But he will, you'll see! Five hundred francs on Costeclar! Do you take it?
No? I am sorry. It's twenty-five napoleons lost for me. I know very well that Mlle. - what's her name?"
"Gilberte."
"Hallo! a nice name for a cashier's daughter! I am aware that she once sent that poor Costeclar and his offer to - Called. But she had resources then; whilst now - It's stupid as it can be; but people have to eat!"
"There are still women, mademoiselle, capable of starving to death."
M. de Traggers now felt satisfied. It seemed evident to him that they had somehow got wind of his intentions; that Mlle. de Thaller had been sent to feel the ground; and that she only attacked Mlle.
Gilberte in order to irritate him, and compel him, in a moment of anger, to declare himself.
"Bash!" she said, "Mlle. Favoral is like all the others. If she had to select between the amiable Costeclar and a charcoal furnace, it is not the furnace she would take."
At all times, Marius de Tregars disliked Mlle. Cesarine to a supreme degree; but at this moment, without the pressing desire he had to see the Baron and Baroness de Thaller, he would have withdrawn.
"Believe me, mademoiselle," he uttered coldly. "Spare a poor girl stricken by a most cruel misfortune. Worse might happen to you."
"To me! And what the mischief do you suppose can happen me?"
"Who knows?"
She started to her feet so violently, that she upset the piano-stool.
"Whatever It may be," she exclaimed, "I say in advance, I am glad!"
And as M. de Traggers turned his head in some surprise, "Yes, I am glad!" she repeated, "because it would be a change; and I am sick of the life I lead. Yes, sick to be eternally and invariably happy of that same dreary happiness. And to think that there are idiots who believe that I amuse myself, and who envy my fate! To think, that, when I ride through the streets, I hear girls exclaim, whilst looking at me, 'Isn't she lucky?' Little fools!
I'd like to see them in my place. They live, they do. Their pleasures are not all alike. They have anxieties and hopes, ups and downs, hours of rain and hours of sunshine; whilst I - always dead calm! the barometer always at 'Set fair.' What a bore! Do you know what I did to-day? Exactly the same thing as yesterday; and to-morrow I'll do the same thing as to-day.
"A good dinner is a good thing; but always the same dinner, without extras or additions - pouah! Too many truffles. I want some corned beef and cabbage. I know the bill of fare by heart, you see.
In winter, theatres and balls; in summer, races and the seashore; summer and winter, shopping, rides to the bois, calls, trying dresses, perpetual adoration by mother's friends, all of them brilliant and gallant fellows to whom the mere thought of my dowry gives the jaundice. Excuse me, if I yawn: I am thinking of their conversations.
"And to think," she went on, "that such will be my existence until I make up my mind to take a husband! For I'll have to come to it too. The Baron Three Sixty-eight will present to me some sort of a swell, attracted by my money. I'll answer, 'I'd just as soon have him as any other; and he will be admitted to the honor of paying his attentions to me. Every morning he will send me a splendid bouquet: every evening, after bank-hours, he'll come along with fresh kid gloves and a white vest. During the afternoon, he and papa will pull each other's hair out on the subject of the dowry.
At last the happy day will arrive. Can't you see it from here?
Mass with music, dinner, ball. The Baron Three Sixty-eight will not spare me a single ceremony. The marriage of the manager of the Mutual Credit must certainly be an advertisement. The papers will publish the names of the bridesmaids and of the guests.
"To be sure, papa will have a face a yard long; because he will have been compelled to pay the dowry the day before. Mamma will be all upset at the idea of becoming a grandmother. The bridegroom will be in a wretched humor, because his boots will be too tight; and I'll look like a goose, because I'll be dressed in white; and white is a stupid color, which is not at all becoming to me. Charming family gathering, isn't it? Two weeks later, my husband will be sick of me, and I'll be disgusted with him. After a month, we'll be at daggers' points. He'll go back to his club and his mistresses; and I - I shall have conquered the right to go out alone; and I'll begin again going to the bois, to balls, to races, wherever my mother goes. I'll spend an enormous amount of money on my dress, and I'll make debts which papa will pay."
Though any thing might be expected of Mlle. Cesarine, still M. de Traggers seemed visibly astonished. And she, laughing at his surprise, "That's the invariable programme," she went on; "and that's why I say I'm glad at the idea of a change, whatever it may be. You find fault with me for not pitying Mlle. Gilberte. How could I, since I envy her? She is happy, because her future is not settled, laid out, fixed in advance. She is poor; but she is free. She is twenty; she is pretty; she has an admirable voice; she can go on the stage to-morrow, and be, before six months, one of the pet actresses of Paris. What a life then! Ah, that is the one I dream, the one I would have selected, had I been mistress of my destiny."
But she was interrupted by the noise of the opening door.
The Baroness de Thaller appeared. As she was, immediately after dinner, to go to the opera, and afterwards to a party given by the Viscountess de Bois d'Ardon, she was in full dress. She wore a dress, cut audaciously low in the neck, of very light gray satin, trimmed with bands of cherry-colored silk edged with lace. In her hair, worn high over her head, she had a bunch of fuchsias, the flexible stems of which, fastened by a large diamond star, trailed down to her very shoulders, white and smooth as marble.
