landing with a great rustling of
flounces, and calls to her in a very loud voice, leaning over the rail,
that she is at home every Friday. "You understand, every Friday."

Now it is dark. The two great lamps in the salon are lighted. In the
adjoining room they hear the servant laying the table. It is all over.
Madame Fromont Jeune will not come.

Sidonie is pale with rage.

"Just fancy, that minx can't come up eighteen steps! No doubt Madame
thinks we're not grand enough for her. Ah! but I'll have my revenge."

As she pours forth her wrath in unjust words, her voice becomes coarse,
takes on the intonations of the faubourg, an accent of the common people
which betrays the ex-apprentice of Mademoiselle Le Mire.

Risler is unlucky enough to make a remark.

"Who knows? Perhaps the child is ill."

She turns upon him in a fury, as if she would like to bite him.

"Will you hold your tongue about that brat? After all, it's your fault
that this has happened to me. You don't know how to make people treat me
with respect."

And as she closed the door of her bedroom violently, making the globes
on the lamps tremble, as well as all the knick-knacks on the etageres,
Risler, left alone, stands motionless in the centre of the salon,
looking with an air of consternation at his white cuffs, his broad
patent-leather shoes, and mutters mechanically:

"My wife's reception day!"

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER VII. THE TRUE PEARL AND THE FALSE

"What can be the matter? What have I done to her?" Claire Fromont very
often wondered when she thought of Sidonie.

She was entirely ignorant of what had formerly taken place between her
friend and Georges at Savigny. Her own life was so upright, her mind
so pure, that it was impossible for her to divine the jealous,
mean-spirited ambition that had grown up by her side within the past
fifteen years. And yet the enigmatical expression in that pretty face
as it smiled upon her gave her a vague feeling of uneasiness which
she could not understand. An affectation of politeness, strange enough
between friends, was suddenly succeeded by an ill-dissembled anger, a
cold, stinging tone, in presence of which Claire was as perplexed as
by a difficult problem. Sometimes, too, a singular presentiment, the
ill-defined intuition of a great misfortune, was mingled with her
uneasiness; for all women have in some degree a kind of second sight,
and, even in the most innocent, ignorance of evil is suddenl