he excellent Risler had such an absurd way of
showing his love for her, playing with her as if she were a doll,
pinching her chin and her cheek, capering about her, crying, "Hou! hou!"
or staring at her with his great, soft eyes like an affectionate and
grateful dog. That senseless love, which made of her a toy, a mantel
ornament, made her ashamed. As for her parents, they were an
embarrassment to her in presence of the people she wished to know, and
immediately after her marriage she almost got rid of them by hiring a
little house for them at Montrouge. That step had cut short the frequent
invasions of Monsieur Chebe and his long frock-coat, and the endless
visits of good Madame Chebe, in whom the return of comfortable
circumstances had revived former habits of gossip and of indolence.

Sidonie would have been very glad to rid herself of the Delobelles in the
same way, for their proximity annoyed her. But the Marais was a central
location for the old actor, because the boulevard theatres were so near;
then, too, Desiree, like all sedentary persons, clung to the familiar
outlook, and her gloomy courtyard, dark at four o'clock in winter, seemed
to her like a friend, like a familiar face which the sun lighted up at
times as if it were smiling at her. As she was unable to get rid of them,
Sidonie had adopted the course of ceasing to visit them.

In truth, her life would have been lonely and depressing enough, had it
not been for the distractions which Claire Fromont procured for her. Each
time added fuel to her wrath. She would say to herself:

"Must everything come to me through her?"

And when, just at dinner-time, a box at the theatre or an invitation for
the evening was sent to her from the floor below, while she was dressing,
overjoyed at the opportunity to exhibit herself, she thought of nothing
but crushing her rival. But such opportunities became more rare as
Claire's time was more and more engrossed by her child. When Grandfather
Gardinois came to Paris, however, he never failed to bring the two
families together. The old peasant's gayety, for its freer expansion,
needed little Sidonie, who did not take alarm at his jests. He would take
them all four to dine at Philippe's, his favorite restaurant, where he
knew all the patrons, the waiters and the steward, would spend a lot of
money, and then take them to a reserved box at the Opera-Comique or the
Palais-Royal.

At the theatre he laughed uproariously, talked f