easant, and if I have to--"

"Enough," said Madame Desvarennes, sharply tapping with the tips of her
fingers Cayrol's great fist which he held menacingly like a butcher about
to strike. Then, taking him quietly aside toward the window, she added:

"You are a fool to go on like this! Go to my room for a moment. To you,
now, she will not say anything; to me she will confide all and we shall
know what to do."

Cayrol's face brightened.

"You are right," he said. "Yes, as ever, you are right. You must excuse
rile, I do not know how to talk to women. Rebuke her and put a little
sense in her head. But don't leave her; she is fit to commit any folly."

Madame Desvarennes smiled.

"Be easy," she answered.

And making a sign to Cayrol, who was leaving the room, she returned to
Jeanne.

"Come, my child, compose yourself. We are alone and you will tell me what
happened. Among women we understand each other. Come, you were
frightened, eh?"

Jeanne was one petrified, immovable, and dumb, she fixed her eyes on a
flower which was hanging from a vase. This red flower fascinated her. She
could not take her eyes off it. Within her a persistent thought recurred:
that of her irremediable misfortune. Madame Desvarennes looked at her for
a moment; then, gently touching her shoulder, resumed;

"Won't you answer me? Have you not confidence in me? Have I not brought
you up? And if you are not born of me, have not the tenderness and care I
have lavished upon you made me your real mother?"

Jeanne did not answer, but her eyes filled with tears;

"You know that I love you," continued the mistress. "Come, come to my
arms as you used to do when you were little and were suffering. Place
your head thereon my heart and let your tears flow. I see they are
choking you."

Jeanne could no longer resist, and falling on her knees beside Madame
Desvarennes, she buried her face in the silky and scented folds of her
dress like a frightened bird that flies to the nest and hides itself
under the wings of its mother.

This great and hopeless grief was to the mistress a certain proof that
Cayrol was right. Jeanne had loved and still loved another man than her
husband. But why had she not said anything, and why had she allowed
herself to be married to the banker? She had resisted, she remembered
now. She had struggled, and the refusals they had put down to pride they
must now attribute to passion.

She did not wish to be separated from him whom sh