al, now his superior, he can't stand that. But why bother
one's head about all these spiteful creatures? Why, I am surrounded by
them here."

Risler looked at her with wide-open eyes:--"You?"

"Why, yes, it is easy enough to see that all these people detest me. They
bear little Chebe a grudge because she has become Madame Risler Aine.
Heaven only knows all the outrageous things that are said about me! And
your cashier doesn't keep his tongue in his pocket, I assure you. What a
spiteful fellow he is!"

These few words had their effect. Risler, indignant, but too proud to
complain, met coldness with coldness. Those two honest men, each
intensely distrustful of the other, could no longer meet without a
painful sensation, so that, after a while, Risler ceased to go to the
counting-room at all. It was not difficult for him, as Fromont Jeune had
charge of all financial matters. His month's allowance was carried to him
on the thirtieth of each month. This arrangement afforded Sidonie and
Georges additional facilities, and opportunity for all sorts of underhand
dealing.

She thereupon turned her attention to the completion of her programme of
a life of luxury. She lacked a country house. In her heart she detested
the trees, the fields, the country roads that cover you with dust. "The
most dismal things on earth," she used to say. But Claire Fromont passed
the summer at Savigny. As soon as the first fine days arrived, the trunks
were packed and the curtains taken down on the floor below; and a great
furniture van, with the little girl's blue bassinet rocking on top, set
off for the grandfather's chateau. Then, one morning, the mother,
grandmother, child, and nurse, a medley of white gowns and light veils,
would drive away behind two fast horses toward the sunny lawns and the
pleasant shade of the avenues.

At that season Paris was ugly, depopulated; and although Sidonie loved it
even in the summer, which heats it like a furnace, it troubled her to
think that all the fashion and wealth of Paris were driving by the
seashore under their light umbrellas, and would make their outing an
excuse for a thousand new inventions, for original styles of the most
risque sort, which would permit one to show that one has a pretty ankle
and long, curly chestnut hair of one's own.

The seashore bathing resorts! She could not think of them; Risler could
not leave Paris.

How about buying a country house? They had not the means. To be sure,