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The poor must pay for all their enjoyments

FROMONT AND RISLER

By ALPHONSE DAUDET

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 suddenly illumined by visions of extraordinary lucidity.

From time to time, as the result of a conversation somewhat longer than
usual, or of one of those unexpected meetings when faces taken by
surprise allow their real thoughts to be seen, Madame Fromont reflected
seriously concerning this strange little Sidonie; but the active, urgent
duties of life, with its accompaniment of affections and preoccupations,
left her no time for dwelling upon such trifles.

To all women comes a time when they encounter such sudden windings in the
road that their whole horizon changes and all their points of view become
transformed.

Had Claire been a young girl, the falling away of that friendship bit by
bit, as if torn from her by an unkindly hand, would have been a source of
great regret to her. But she had lost her father, the object of her
greatest, her only youthful affection; then she had married. The child
had come, with its thrice welcome demands upon her every moment.
Moreover, she had with her her mother, almost in her dotage, still
stupefied by her husband's tragic death. In a life so fully occupied,
Sidonie's caprices received but little attention; and it had hardly
occurred to Claire Fromont to be surprised at her marriage to Risler. He
was clearly too old for her; but, after