Rue de
Miromesnil, a certain Madame Bourdieu, said she.

Constance at first made light of her friend's statements, and in part
declined to believe her. But when she found herself alone she felt
disquieted by what she had heard. Perhaps she would have treated the
matter as mere idle tittle-tattle, if she had not already regretted that
she herself had no second child. On the day when the unhappy Morange had
lost his only daughter, and had remained stricken down, utterly alone in
life, she had experienced a vague feeling of anguish. Since that supreme
loss the wretched accountant had been living on in a state of imbecile
stupefaction, simply discharging his duties in a mechanical sort of way
from force of habit. Scarcely speaking, but showing great gentleness
of manner, he lived as one who was stranded, fated to remain forever
at Beauchene's works, where his salary had now risen to eight thousand
francs a year. It was not known what he did with this amount, which was
considerable for a man who led such a narrow regular life, free from
expenses and fancies outside his home--that flat which was much too big
for him, but which he had, nevertheless, obstinately retained, shutting
himself up therein, and leading a most misanthropic life in fierce
solitude.

It was his grievous prostration which had at one moment quite upset
and affected Constance, so that she had even sobbed with the desolate
man--she whose tears flowed so seldom! No doubt a thought that she might
have had other children than Maurice came back to her in certain bitter
hours of unconscious self-examination, when from the depths of her
being, in which feelings of motherliness awakened, there rose vague
fear, sudden dread, such as she had never known before.

Yet Maurice, her son, after a delicate youth which had necessitated
great care, was now a handsome fellow of nineteen, still somewhat pale,
but vigorous in appearance. He had completed his studies in a fairly
satisfactory manner, and was already helping his father in the
management of the works. And his adoring mother had never set higher
hopes upon his head. She already pictured him as the master of that
great establishment, whose prosperity he would yet increase, thereby
rising to royal wealth and power.

Constance's worship for that only son, to-morrow's hero; increased the
more since his father day by day declined in her estimation, till she
regarded him in fact with naught but contempt and disgust.