How did you succeed, little Chebe, in maintaining your self-possession when you learned that the factory had eluded your grasp and that another woman had taken your place? What a terrible evening!--Madame Chebe sat by the table mending; M. Chebe before the fire drying his clothes, which were wet through by his having walked a long distance in the rain. Oh!

that miserable room, overflowing with gloom and ennui! The lamp gave a dim light. The supper, hastily prepared, had left in the room the odor of the poor man's kitchen. And Risler, intoxicated with joy, talking with increasing animation, laid great plans!

All these things tore your heart, and made the treachery still more horrible by the contrast between the riches that eluded your outstretched hand and the ign.o.ble mediocrity in which you were doomed to pa.s.s your life.

Sidonie was seriously ill for a long while. As she lay in bed, whenever the window-panes rattled behind the curtains, the unhappy creature fancied that Georges's wedding-coaches were driving through the street; and she had paroxysms of nervous excitement, without words and inexplicable, as if a fever of wrath were consuming her.

At last, time and youthful strength, her mother's care, and, more than all, the attentions of Desiree, who now knew of the sacrifice her friend had made for her, triumphed over the disease. But for a long while Sidonie was very weak, oppressed by a deadly melancholy, by a constant longing to weep, which played havoc with her nervous system.

Sometimes she talked of travelling, of leaving Paris. At other times she insisted that she must enter a convent. Her friends were sorely perplexed, and strove to discover the cause of that singular state of mind, which was even more alarming than her illness; when she suddenly confessed to her mother the secret of her melancholy.

She loved the elder Risler! She never had dared to whisper it; but it was he whom she had always loved and not Frantz.

This news was a surprise to everybody, to Risler most of all; but little Chebe was so pretty, her eyes were so soft when she glanced at him, that the honest fellow instantly became as fond of her as a fool! Indeed, it may be that love had lain in his heart for a long time without his realizing it.

And that is how it happened that, on the evening of her wedding-day, young Madame Risler, in her white wedding-dress, gazed with a smile of triumph at the window on the landing which had been the narrow setting of ten years of her life. That haughty smile, in which there was a touch of profound pity and of scorn as well, such scorn as a parvenu feels for his poor beginnings, was evidently addressed to the poor sickly child whom she fancied she saw up at that window, in the depths of the past and the darkness. It seemed to say to Claire, pointing at the factory:

"What do you say to this little Chebe? She is here at last, you see!"

CHAPTER VI. NOON--THE MARAIS IS BREAKFASTING.

Sitting near the door, on a stone which once served as a horse-block for equestrians, Risler watches with a smile the exit from the factory.

He never loses his enjoyment of the outspoken esteem of all these good people whom he knew when he was insignificant and humble like themselves. The "Good-day, Monsieur Risler," uttered by so many different voices, all in the same affectionate tone, warms his heart.

The children accost him without fear, the long-bearded designers, half-workmen, half-artists, shake hands with him as they pa.s.s, and address him familiarly as "thou." Perhaps there is a little too much familiarity in all this, for the worthy man has not yet begun to realize the prestige and authority of his new station; and there was some one who considered this free-and-easy manner very humiliating. But that some one can not see him at this moment, and the master takes advantage of the fact to bestow a hearty greeting upon the old bookkeeper, Sigismond, who comes out last of all, erect and red-faced, imprisoned in a high collar and bareheaded--whatever the weather--for fear of apoplexy.

He and Risler are fellow-countrymen. They have for each other a profound esteem, dating from their first employment at the factory, from that time, long, long ago, when they breakfasted together at the little creamery on the corner, to which Sigismond Pla.n.u.s goes alone now and selects his refreshment for the day from the slate hanging on the wall.

But stand aside! The carriage of Fromont Jeune drives through the gateway. He has been out on business all the morning; and the partners, as they walk toward the pretty little house in which they both live at the end of the garden, discuss matters of business in a friendly way.

"I have been at Procha.s.son's," says Fromont. "They showed me some new patterns, pretty ones too, I a.s.sure you. We must be on our guard. They are dangerous rivals."

But Risler is not at all anxious. He is strong in his talent, his experience; and then--but this is strictly confidential--he is on the track of a wonderful invention, an improved printing-press, something that--but we shall see. Still talking, they enter the garden, which is as carefully kept as a public park, with round-topped acacias almost as old as the buildings, and magnificent ivies that hide the high, black walls.

Beside Fromont jeune, Risler Aine has the appearance of a clerk making his report to his employer. At every step he stops to speak, for his gait is heavy, his mind works slowly, and words have much difficulty in finding their way to his lips. Oh, if he could see the little flushed face up yonder, behind the window on the second floor, watching everything so attentively!

Madame Risler is waiting for her husband to come to breakfast, and waxes impatient over the good man's moderation. She motions to him with her hand:

"Come, come!" but Risler does not notice it. His attention is engrossed by the little Fromont, daughter of Claire and Georges, who is taking a sun-bath, blooming like a flower amid her lace in her nurse's arms. How pretty she is! "She is your very picture, Madame Chorche."

"Do you think so, my dear Risler? Why, everybody says she looks like her father."

"Yes, a little. But--"

And there they all stand, the father and mother, Risler and the nurse, gravely seeking resemblances in that miniature model of a human being, who stares at them out of her little eyes, blinking with the noise and glare. Sidonie, at her open window, leans out to see what they are doing, and why her husband does not come up.

At that moment Risler has taken the tiny creature in his arms, the whole fascinating bundle of white draperies and light ribbons, and is trying to make it laugh and crow with baby-talk and gestures worthy of a grandfather. How old he looks, poor man! His tall body, which he contorts for the child's amus.e.m.e.nt, his hoa.r.s.e voice, which becomes a low growl when he tries to soften it, are absurd and ridiculous.

Above, the wife taps the floor with her foot and mutters between her teeth:

"The idiot!"

At last, weary of waiting, she sends a servant to tell Monsieur that breakfast is served; but the game is so far advanced that Monsieur does not see how he can go away, how he can interrupt these explosions of laughter and little bird-like cries. He succeeds at last, however, in giving the child back to its nurse, and enters the hall, laughing heartily. He is laughing still when he enters the dining-room; but a glance from his wife stops him short.

Sidonie is seated at table before the chafing-dish, already filled. Her martyr-like att.i.tude suggests a determination to be cross.

"Oh! there you are. It's very lucky!"

Risler took his seat, a little ashamed.

"What would you have, my love? That child is so--"

"I have asked you before now not to speak to me in that way. It isn't good form."

"What, not when we're alone?"

"Bah! you will never learn to adapt yourself to our new fortune. And what is the result? No one in this place treats me with any respect.

Pere Achille hardly touches his hat to me when I pa.s.s his lodge. To be sure, I'm not a Fromont, and I haven't a carriage."

"Come, come, little one, you know perfectly well that you can use Madame Chorche's coupe. She always says it is at our disposal."

"How many times must I tell you that I don't choose to be under any obligation to that woman?"

"O Sidonie"

"Oh! yes, I know, it's all understood. Madame Fromont is the good Lord himself. Every one is forbidden to touch her. And I must make up my mind to be a n.o.body in my own house, to allow myself to be humiliated, trampled under foot."

"Come, come, little one--"

Poor Risler tries to interpose, to say a word in favor of his dear Madame "Chorche." But he has no tact. This is the worst possible method of effecting a reconciliation; and Sidonie at once bursts forth:

"I tell you that that woman, with all her calm airs, is proud and spiteful. In the first place, she detests me, I know that. So long as I was poor little Sidonie and she could toss me her broken dolls and old clothes, it was all right, but now that I am my own mistress as well as she, it vexes her and humiliates her. Madame gives me advice with a lofty air, and criticises what I do. I did wrong to have a maid. Of course! Wasn't I in the habit of waiting on myself? She never loses a chance to wound me. When I call on her on Wednesdays, you should hear the tone in which she asks me, before everybody, how 'dear Madame Chebe'

is. Oh! yes. I'm a Chebe and she's a Fromont. One's as good as the other, in my opinion. My grandfather was a druggist. What was hers? A peasant who got rich by money-lending. I'll tell her so one of these days, if she shows me too much of her pride; and I'll tell her, too, that their little imp, although they don't suspect it, looks just like that old Pere Gardinois, and heaven knows he isn't handsome."

"Oh!" exclaims Risler, unable to find words to reply.

"Oh! yes, of course! I advise you to admire their child. She's always ill. She cries all night like a little cat. It keeps me awake. And afterward, through the day, I have mamma's piano and her scales--tra, la la la! If the music were only worth listening to!"

Risler has taken the wise course. He does not say a word until he sees that she is beginning to calm down a little, when he completes the soothing process with compliments.

"How pretty we are to-day! Are we going out soon to make some calls, eh?"

He resorts to this mode of address to avoid the more familiar form, which is so offensive to her.

"No, I am not going to make calls," Sidonie replies with a certain pride. "On the contrary, I expect to receive them. This is my day."

In response to her husband's astounded, bewildered expression she continues: