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he people of the _grand monde_ came to see Jean. She could not see the things around her, but they were very clearly pictured in her mind--the beautiful rugs, so soft and silky to the touch, that hung from the walls; the queer, spindly furniture, that did not seem made for use at all, that she had been afraid to touch at first for fear it would break, it looked so fragile; the dark, glossy floor, like a mirror, that she had polished only that morning; the--her thoughts were suddenly, disturbingly, flying off at a tangent. That morning! It brought a quick twinge of pain to Marie-Louise's heart. The salon had been--had been--oh, she did not know how to describe it--only Madame Mi-mi had said it was often like that, that Jean led the gay life, and why not, since he had the _sous_ to pay and was rich? There had been broken glasses, and confusion, and callous ruin of things that were priceless, and cards strewn over the floor--and--and somehow she had not been able to keep her eyes from being wet all the time she had been cleaning up the room. It--it made her heart very heavy, and very sorrowful. And yet, too, in a way, she could understand--because she understood Jean. Long, long ago she had been afraid--afraid of his success for him, even while she had prayed for it. If Jean had only a mother, only some one whose love would hold him back. If he were married--if he had a wife--it would change all this sort of life that he led now. Yes; if he were married! She could think of that quite calmly, in a perfectly impersonal way. Why should she not? Some day Jean would marry--marry some one out of this new world in which she had no part, which to her was so very strange and foreign and hard to understand; but which to Jean was so natural, and which, henceforth, could be the only life he would know. Yes; she could think of his marrying quite calmly. And why not? She had no longer part in that--she had passed out of Jean's life long ago, that day in Bernay-sur-Mer. Perhaps it would be Mademoiselle Bliss--Hector had hinted at it and winked prodigiously. She found her hand clenching very hard at her side. It seemed very, very strange, and it was very, very curious that, while she could think quite calmly of Jean marrying some one because it would be very good for Jean to marry, a pang came and her heart rebelled when the "some one," instead of being vague and general and indefinite, became a particular "some one" t
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