The fear of living

PART I

CHAPTER I
MARCEL’S HOMECOMING

Madame Guibert was waiting in the drawing-room at “Le Maupas,” ready to go out. In one hand she held her umbrella, though the weather was fine and the barometer high, while with the other hand she raised the long crape veil draped over her widow’s bonnet. She sat down for a moment, attempting to wait patiently and, after several glances at the large old-fashioned clock, surmounted by a threatening bronze figure of Vercingetorix the Gaul, she rose again and crossed the room with slow, lagging steps. She seemed to be deep in a study of the quaint old clock-face. She sat down again; this time not on one of the many well-worn armchairs, whose familiar comfort seemed so inviting, but instead upon a cane-seated chair, from which she could rise more promptly and with less effort.

Madame Guibert was advanced in years, short and stout, and scant of breath. In her face gentleness was combined with strength. The pale blue eyes, infinitely tender in their expression and full of unshed tears, revealed a timid and loving nature, easily frightened by the outside world, while the square chin and the thick-set, compact figure suggested energy and endurance. The cheeks, still fresh in spite of the years, showed the noble blood in her veins and a well-preserved, vigorous constitution.

After hesitating several times she summoned up sufficient courage to open the door and call: “Paule, are you coming? It is time to start.”

“Oh, Mother, we have plenty of time,” came the reply in fresh, clear tones.

“The clock says seven,” insisted Madame Guibert, wearily.

“You know that clock is three quarters of an hour fast.”

“But it may have suddenly gone slow. It is very irregular.”

The girl’s answer was merely a burst of laughter, completely devoid of any hint of sarcasm. Then she added:

“I’m putting on my hat; I’ll be with you in a minute.”

Madame Guibert sat down again, resigned. Her eyes wandered about the little country drawing-room, through whose windows, with their double white curtains freshly washed and ironed, the light of a summer evening broke softly, filtering through the foliage of the tall trees outside. The modest furniture was all in keeping; no touch of luxury marred the effect. Its seasoned age bore cheerful testimony to past generations and vanished tastes. There were two engravings, a hundred years old, representing charming episodes from Paul et Virginie. In “The Bath” the young girl was modestly holding up the robe that threatened to slip from her smooth shoulder, as she gently touched the cold water with a pretty, shivering foot. And in “The Torrent,” opposite, the youthful Paul might be seen carrying his little friend, a light burden, as he carefully crossed the turbulent stream. A more recent lithograph depicted “Napoleon’s Farewell at Fontainebleau,” in which against the dark background of thronging grenadiers the white knee-breeches of the Emperor stood out in relief, as the central point of the historic scene. Lastly, as if to give a more modern touch to the walls, a faded water-color pretended to have caught the azure of an eastern sky and also the motley hues of Abd-el-Kader’s smala, captured by a charge of French cavalry. An upright piano, its top covered with scores, and two music cabinets crammed to overflowing indicated an artist’s enthusiasm for music, whereas a former grand, now bereft of its harmonious soul, did duty as a rosewood table.

Madame Guibert’s eyes no longer took in these familiar objects, but they caught sight of a flower-vase out of its proper place. She was accustomed to orderliness so this lapse annoyed her and she hastened to set it straight. This vase held her customary offering, during the season of roses, before the cherished portraits that were at once her joy and her sorrow. This honor was paid daily at the domestic altar, yet withal she did not reproach herself unduly to-day for her neglect, because of the natural preoccupation which filled her heart and mind. From their sombre frames an enlarged photograph of her husband, Dr. Maurice Guibert, who had died at the beginning of the previous year, a victim to his tireless devotion to his patients during an epidemic of typhoid fever; and also another portrait, that of her daughter Thérèse, called to Himself by God when she was only twelve years of age, seemed to smile upon her on this day of rejoicing in her house of mourning. For was not the second son, Marcel, returning to France, after having taken a prominent part in an expedition against the Fahavalos of Madagascar?

After three years’ absence Marcel was coming back safe and sound, a Captain at twenty-eight years of age, and decorated with the Legion of Honor. The telegram sent off that morning from Marseilles had been read and re-read, and was still lying open on the drawing-room table. It announced his arrival at Chambéry on the seven-thirty train. And that was why Madame Guibert had gotten herself ready two hours too soon. She was going to town to meet the homecomer. Already her thoughts were with that train which was s ding along the iron track from Lyons.

Yet she knew that the meeting would be agitating and that she would need all her courage. When Marcel had learnt of the death of his father, he was far away, on the pestilential banks of a Madagascar river. When death calls those whom we love while we are far away, what infinite cruelty and bitterness are added to the blow!

The young man’s first glance would be at her mourning clothes and the recent indications of her advancing years. There would be a shadow between them. She braced herself for the effort, as she reflected: “When the children came home by train it was always he who watched for their arrival on the platform. I must be there to-day in his stead.”

At this moment Paule entered the room. A brilliant frame of black hair set off the rounded ivory of her face. A black dress accentuated her slimness, but she did not look fragile. Resolution and courage were mingled in her proud bearing and firm glance. The glory of youth illumined her sombreness with a radiance like that thrown on the sea at night by the brilliant lights of a ship. This girl of twenty had known suffering at an age when the sensibilities are keenest. She had steeled herself in order that she might not falter; and the secret of her struggle was revealed in her carriage. But withal her dark eyes shone the more brilliantly on this account and her face wore a new gladness, as a rose-tree its first blossom.

Her mother was surprised to see her without her hat.

“What, not ready yet? That is foolish.”

“But you are not ready either,” replied the girl with a bright smile.

She had in her hand a mourning bonnet edged with a white piping, such as widows wear, as she crossed the room with a quick, light step.

“Don’t get up, Mother, please. I want you to look nice when you meet your son, so I have made this bonnet for you. Don’t you like the shape? The one you have on is all worn out.” And with a grace that completely conquered her mother’s opposition, she continued: “Let me be your maid. Your arm pains you.”

“It is my rheumatism,” murmured Madame Guibert.

When she had changed her bonnet, without even a glance in the glass, she said timidly to her daughter, for she did not wish to displease her:

“And now, darling, don’t you think it is nearly time for us to start?”

“Yes,” said Paule, “I will go and tell Trélaz.”

Trélaz was the farmer who was to drive the carriage for them to Chambéry station.

When Paule had gone Mme. Guibert gazed at a group-photograph of her children. There had been six of them then. Now there were only five. Étienne, the eldest, was an engineer in Tonkin. Marcel an officer in the Tirailleurs. Marguerite was a Sister of Charity. François, after failing to pass his examinations, had joined his brother in the Far East. And Paule was the last jewel in her crown of life. What separations, she thought—some of them eternal—had she endured in the course of sixty years!

Paule returned from the farm with the news that Trélaz was ready. She put on her hat in an instant and could not refrain from protesting against her mother’s impatience. She glanced at the old clock which mocked the dock-makers and despite innumerable repairs preserved its own independence of spirit.

“We shall have to wait nearly an hour at the station,” she said.

“I should not like to be late,” insisted Madame Guibert.

And as she left the house she turned to the old servant, who was putting on her spectacles in order that no details of the start might escape her.

“Marie, mind that there are no tramps about!”

She lifted herself with an effort into the rustic carriage which had drawn up in front of the steps. When she had settled down she smiled sweetly at her daughter, and the fleeting expression brought back to her face for just an instant the softness that had been so attractive in her youth. Paule stepped up lightly beside her.

“Now, Trélaz! You will have to drive rather quickly. But don’t use the whip, and be careful going down hill.”

“We always get there somehow,” replied the farmer philosophically.

The carriage started. It was an old time vehicle, of a long-forgotten make. The seats ran lengthwise, and on them the passengers sat back to back, with their feet in a wooden frame. The oddity of its build was a never failing source of jest as people took their places in it.

The mare no less venerable, her hoof now and again striking the rattling wheel as she descended the avenue of chestnuts and heavy foliaged plane-trees at a walking pace and passed through the ever open gate—necessarily so indeed, on account of its useless rusty hinges. She turned into the Vimines road under the shadow of the oak-woods, and, leaving behind a level-crossing, came out on the high road from Lyons to Chambéry, which runs through the village of Cognin. There, the road being easier, the old brown mare stepped less cautiously as though she no longer cared how she went, and finished by breaking into a swinging trot which seemed much too fast for the timid Madame Guibert.

The sun had already disappeared behind the Beacon, one of the peaks of the Lépine range, but the clear light of the summer evening hung over the countryside for quite a long time after.

“Mother, look at the mountains,” said Paule.

They form a vast circle around Chambéry, and their rocky heights were tinged with a gorgeous pink, while around their base and sides floated, like a delicate veil, that bluish haze which is the forerunner of fine morrows. But Madame Guibert’s anxiety was too keen to allow her to contemplate the reflection of the setting sun on the summits of the hills. Suddenly she revealed the cause of her preoccupation:

“Suppose the train is ahead of time!”

And although she had spoken earnestly, she was the first to smile at her own supposition.

At last her eyes noted a soft transparent shadow climbing the mountains, and leaving the cross of Le Nivolet bathed in radiant light for an instant she called her daughter’s attention to this symbol, a token of shining faith. Then the same serene peace fell on all nature and, for the first time in long months, on the faces of the two sad women.

As they neared Chambéry, a break drawn by two fast-trotting horses, passed Trélaz’s old coach.

“It is the Dulaurens’s carriage,” said Paule. “They are going to Aix. They did not bow to us.”

“I don’t suppose they recognised us.”

“Oh, yes, they did. But since we gave up our fortune to save uncle people do not bow to us as they used to.”

She alluded to a family misfortune which had occurred shortly before her father’s death. Madame Guibert took her daughter’s hand:

“But that is nothing, dear. Just think, in a few minutes we shall see Marcel.”

After a short silence Paule asked:

“Wasn’t it father who attended and cured Alice Dulaurens, during that epidemic of typhoid fever at Cognin which finally carried him off?”

“Yes,” murmured the old woman, depressed at this recollection. And it was she who continued softly and uncomplainingly:

“And they even forgot to settle the bill for attendance. That is often the way with rich people. They don’t know what it means for others to live.”

“The reason is because they understand only how to amuse themselves.”

Madame Guibert saw a wave of bitterness cross her daughter’s face, whose every expression she knew.

“We must not envy them,” she said. “In amusing themselves, they forget life. They do not know what fills our hearts. I shall soon be sixty years old. Count my sacrifices and the dear ones I have lost. I am separated from my daughter Thérèse and from my husband, who was my strength. Your eldest sister, Marguerite, is a nun, and I have not seen her for five years. Étienne and François are in Tonkin, and I do not know my grandson who has just been born out there. Marcel is coming back after three years of absence and terrible anxiety. Still my lot has been fortunate. I bless God, who tried me after having crowned me with blessings. Every day I have experienced His goodness. Even in my misery He gave me a support in you.”

With her little ungloved hand Paule pressed her mother’s, cracked and wrinkled.

“Yes, Mother, you are right, I shall complain no more.”

The two miles which separate “Le Maupas” from Chambéry were at length covered. Trélaz set the ladies down at the station and drove his conveyance over to a corner of the Square, away from the hotel omnibuses, the cabs, and the carriages. But the rows of horses envied his mare her well-filled bag of hay which he put before her.

Paule, looking at the clock, noticed with surprise that it was only ten minutes past seven. Her mother saw her face.

“I told you that we should be late.”

The girl smiled: “Late because we shall have to wait only twenty minutes?”

They reached the waiting-room, but as soon as Madame Guibert had opened the door she drew back. Paule gently urged her forward. The room was full of people in evening dress. They were the aristocracy of Chambéry waiting for the theatre-train to Aix-les-Bains. Among them were the Dulaurens family.

Disconcerted, Madame Guibert turned as if to go out, whispering to Paule, “Let us go to the third class waiting-room. It will be pleasanter there.”

“Why?” asked the girl.

At that moment a good-looking young man detached himself from a group of women and came towards them. They recognised Lieutenant Jean Berlier, a friend of Marcel. He bowed to them with a courtesy which expressed his deep sympathy.

“You have come to meet the Captain, haven’t you, Madame? I know you don’t like travelling.”

“Oh, no, I don’t.”

“How pleased he will be to see you; he will soon be here!”

“In the past,” said the old lady to the young man, whom she had known as a boy, “his father used to meet him. You will understand.”

“Yes, I know,” said Jean Berlier, and in order not to dwell on so painful a subject in a public place he added:

“I shall be able to shake Marcel by the hand before I start.”

“You will come and see him at our house, won’t you? Are you going away?”

“For one night. We are going to Aix. It is the first night of ‘La Vie de Bohème.’ But theatres don’t interest you.”

Sincere as ever, Madame Guibert replied: “I never went to one in my life. To tell you frankly, I do not regret it.”

Although she spoke in low tones, there were two girls in light dresses who could hear her, and one of them, a bold-looking brunette, burst out laughing. But perhaps their fun was at the expense of a lieutenant of dragoons, who was speaking to them. Paule looked at her contemptuously from head to foot, her dark eyes flashing like a swift lightning streak.

“Why are you standing?” Jean went on. The old lady chose a seat beside a vacant armchair in a dark corner, as the humble and timid are wont to do.

“No, take the armchair, Mother,” said Paule rather brusquely. She had just exchanged bows—stiff on her part, cordial on the other’s—with the other of the two young girls, who instead of laughing had blushed.

After a few more words the young man left and rejoined his party. Paule looked after him and heard him say to Madame Dulaurens:

“Yes, that is Madame Guibert. She is waiting for her son, who is returning from Madagascar.”

“Which son? She has so many.”

“Why, the officer—Marcel.”

“What is his rank?”

“Captain. He has been decorated and is famous,” said Jean Berlier hurriedly. He was rather annoyed at being thus questioned, for the dark eyed girl was calling him.

But Madame Dulaurens would not release him.

“Famous?” she demanded. “What did he do?”

“Didn’t you hear about the fight at Andriba, when his company’s action decided the day?”

“Are you sure?”

“Quite sure. The name of Marcel Guibert is known throughout the whole of France.”

This, of course, was a great exaggeration. Modern France does not make a display of her military glory. But Madame Dulaurens was impressed and immediately went over to Madame Guibert. The widow was becoming interesting, in spite of her ruined fortunes, if her son had so great a reputation.

“The Captain comes home to-night, Madame,” she began. “The thoughts of us all followed him out there during that terrible campaign, in which he did so much honor to his country. The papers told us the story of his bravery at the battle of Andriba.”

Behind his wife, Monsieur Dulaurens, a mild, ceremonious little man, was nodding his head in sign of approval, while Clément, a fat and jovial youth of eighteen, who had listened to his mother’s words with amazement, pulled at the sleeve of Jean Berlier and whispered:

“Mother has no lack of assurance, has she? She reads nothing but the society paragraphs in the ‘Gaulois’ How could she have remembered a Malagasy name? I know them all—even the most difficult ones. I got them up for a joke once, because of course I know nothing about the expedition. I’ll tell you a few. Ankerramadinika ...”

In the midst of the throng Madame Guibert felt painfully uncomfortable. Just as her poor mourning robes (though carefully mended by her daughter’s hand) contrasted with the fashionable evening gowns, so too she felt that not a thought in common united her to these society people. The whole party had come up and was complimenting her. After Madame Dulaurens’s congratulations, she received those of Madame Orlandi, an old Italian Countess who lived in retirement at Chambéry, and whose many nervous complaints had provided sufficient employment for her doctor. De Marthenay, the lieutenant of dragoons, fixed her with his eyeglass in curiosity that was almost insolent. She answered the questions addressed to her very simply and timidly, her cheeks suffused with blushes; and Paule, noticing her plight, came to her assistance. She was more at ease, but could not prevent a certain stiffness showing itself in her manner, in spite of the friendly demonstrations of the two girls—the brunette, Isabelle Orlandi, whose remarks were as affected as her attitudes, and still more the other, Alice Dulaurens, who was fair and naturally gracious. The latter overwhelmed Paule with attentions and kindness. She had a pretty voice, lisping and softening the hard sounds, and blending all her words in an even sweetness.

“So your brother is coming! Aren’t you happy? It is years since I saw him. Do you remember the time we used to play games together at Le Maupas or at La Chênaie?”

“Yes,” answered Paule. “But we do not play any more now. The garden at Le Maupas is neglected, and that of La Chênaie is too well cared for.”

“Why don’t you come over any more? You must come.”

Paule wondered why this former schoolfellow of hers at the Sacred Heart, from whom life had separated her so far, should show her so much friendship. She looked at her own black dress, so plain, and simple, and admired without a touch of envy the light blue bodice, trimmed with white lace and cut rather low, from which Alice’s white neck, delicate and supple, rose like a frail flower. From the clothes her eyes passed to the wearer’s face. The features were refined and clear-cut, and the faultless complexion was suffused with a dainty pink. She could not help saying:

“How beautiful you are, Alice!”

Immediately the fresh cheeks mantled, and while Mademoiselle Dulaurens stood aside to allow a traveller to pass, Paule saw how the very indolence and half-weariness of her movements bestowed a certain languishing grace on this charming and delicate girl, in whose presence she realised the more her own youthful strength.

“Oh, no, it is you, Paule, ...” protested Alice Dulaurens.

But the noise of the Lyons express suddenly broke in upon the conversation. The whole party rushed out of the waiting-room. The Dulaurens family and their friends began to look for first class carriages in the section of the train intended for the theatre-goers. From the other portion the passengers were already hastening towards the exit.

The first of these was a tall, thin young man, very erect, who held his head thrown back with a haughty air. In his hand he was carrying a sword wrapped in green serge. As soon as he saw Madame Guibert he ran towards her and was soon folded in her arms.

“My son!” she cried, and, in spite of her resolution to be brave, she burst into sobs.

But Marcel straightened himself up after the embrace and gazed with tender emotion at this old figure on whom trials had left their traces. A change came over the bronzed, almost hard, features of the young man. There was no need for them to utter the name that trembled on their lips, and the same pious memory stirred both their hearts. The joy of the meeting gave a poignant new life to the old sorrow.

Paule contemplated with a softened expression her tall, handsome brother and her old mother. By the step of their compartment Alice Dulaurens and Isabelle Orlandi turned, and they too watched the greetings. The eyes of the first rested sympathetically on Marcel, while the eyes of the second looked ironically at Madame Guibert’s stout and agitated form.

Jean Berlier, standing slightly aside, was waiting respectfully. He now came up to Paule.

“How happy they are!” he said. And then he added, with a tinge of melancholy, “When I return from Algeria no one is ever waiting for me.”

As Marcel kissed his young sister, Jean came forward, crying:

“Have you a greeting for me too?”

“What, Jean!” said Marcel, and the two men embraced warmly. Jean was moved but in an instant he was again smiling gaily.

“I shall see you soon,” he said. “I must run now. My train is going.”

“Where are you off to?” asked Marcel.

Jean, on his way to his carriage, half turned and shouted merrily:

“We’re going to show ourselves off at Aix.”

And his fingers seemed to point at random to the various groups clambering into the theatre-train.

Marcel Guibert glanced quickly at the rout of gaily dressed figures. But Paule, looking round, saw Alice leaning out of the window of her carriage to bid her good-bye. She waved her hand to her quickly and undemonstratively, as though she had some misgiving or some superstitious feeling of fear about this seductive vision. Paule was very highly sensitized and her premature misfortunes had made her oversensitive. “Why all these advances?” she asked herself. As her dark eyes rested on her soldier brother, who was leading his mother away on his arm, she added to herself: “Too much good fortune and not enough courage.”

Seeing Trélaz’s vehicle, Marcel cried:

“What, our old carriage!”

“It is the only one we have kept,” explained Madame Guibert, apologetically.

This reply Marcel had not expected when he made the remark. The ancient conveyance had recalled his childhood to him, and now it seemed to him that it also signified the decay of the family. His face darkened. He understood all of a sudden the material difficulties which must have increased the suffering at Le Maupas. Having no personal needs, and accustomed as he was to live on very little, he felt now for his mother and sister and divined the bitterness of their straits. But Madame Guibert was saying to herself, “We ought to have taken a station carriage in his honor.”

They drove across Chambéry, the sleepy capital of Savoy, which the historic castle sets off as if it were a military plume, proud and delicate against the sky. Marcel breathed his native air rapturously. When they left the town, Trélaz’s antiquated equipage recalled a host of recollections. The scene before his eyes suggested his happy, spirited youth. How often, from the Vimines woods, had he enjoyed the bold outlines and vivid lighting of the picture! With the naked walls of Pas-de-la-Fosse in the foreground, and of Granier in the background, which looks out from above over the nearer mountains, it was like a wide sweeping curve of verdure outstretched, and harmoniously defined by three steeples: Belle Combette, softly ensconced among the trees, like a sheep amid the lush grass; Montagnol, the tallest, sombre and dominant like some fortress; Saint-Cassin, humbler and slighter, resting against the thick woods which almost concealed it. A strange incongruous landscape, tempering the harshness of the rough and threatening crags with the sweet softness of this peaceful slope.

When the carriage left the high road, it passed the level crossing over the railway from Saint-André-le-Gaz, and followed the Vimines road, up the steep gradient which plunges into the forest and leads past the open gate of Le Maupas. Marcel got out here to lighten the horse’s burden. He was the first to reach the little rustic house smothered, as in the old days, under the wistaria, jasmine, and roses. And too, as in the old days the twilight lent to the trees in the avenue a sombre, placid, serious look. As he walked, the gravel in the courtyard made the same crunching sound as of old.

On the threshold he awaited his mother and helped her ascend the steps; and when they had entered he clasped the poor, weeping woman to his heart. Paule also at last surrendered herself to the emotion she had too long restrained. The head of the family was no longer there. On the threshold of the home his son had brought back to mind the strong profile, the kindly smile, the self-reliance of the departed.

In this meeting to-day three people tasted the whole flavor of human life, with its mingling of joy and grief.

Meanwhile the Dulaurens family, Madame Orlandi and her daughter, and Lieutenant Armand de Marthenay, had taken their places in the same first class carriage. Isabelle took possession of a corner and with the utmost difficulty kept another for her admirer, Jean Berlier. But when he made up his mind to enter the carriage, at the very moment the train was starting, he was not too well received by the girl.

“Why don’t you stay on the platform and embrace all the men that pass?” she asked.

Jean smiled: “I do the same to the ladies.”

Isabelle was not disarmed. “You made a show of yourself with that Guibert lot. It was ridiculous.”

Alice Dulaurens blushed, but did not dare to protest. The young man was not so easily disconcerted. He did not disdain, in his flirtations, a tone of irony and mockery, which exasperated, if it also attracted, his companion, the pretty and spoilt darling of her family.

“It is true,” he admitted, “that the Guiberts, on meeting each other after three years of separation and mourning, neglected to conform to custom to please you. And even your dress did not win a single glance from the handsome captain.”

“The handsome captain, indeed!”

“He is bald,” observed de Marthenay, whose own thick hair stuck up like a tooth-brush.

“Yes, he became so in the colonies. In a French garrison he would perhaps have kept an abundant covering on his head.”

Isabelle would not own herself vanquished. A spitefulness to which she would not have confessed urged her to attack Jean’s friends, and she went beyond all bounds:

“You heard, I suppose, that your captain’s mother is a perfect phenomenon? She has never set foot in a theatre! I wonder what sort of a life she has led.”

Jean Berlier, who had the greatest respect for Madame Guibert, became bitter.

“She has done what you will never do, Mademoiselle, she has lived for the sake of others.”

“That is not living at all,” retorted Isabelle.

“Do you think so? For my part, I believe that she has lived more than you will ever live, if you were to exist for a hundred years.”

“Oh, indeed! I defy anyone to live at a higher pressure than I do.”

“You get excitement, but that’s not the same thing. Of what effort are you capable?” And then, cutting his lecture short, the young man asked with a laugh: “Are you even capable of a love match?”

“Certainly not! You mean, I suppose, one without money? Thank you for nothing. Fancy vegetating mournfully on dry bread and cotton dresses!” As she spoke, her lovely teeth looked sharp and greedy.

“Come, cheer up,” said Jean, “and show me your hand.”

She held out her fine ungloved hand. He pretended to examine it carefully.

“I see that you will marry a man forty years of age, ugly, and a millionaire. But, after the marriage, he will show his real disposition, sordid avarice. One is always punished in the same way in which one has sinned.”

The grave sententious tone in which he uttered his nonsense amused the whole carriage.

When the conversation had again become general, Isabelle, restored once more to calm, murmured gaily to her vis-à-vis:

“So much the worse for the miser! I shall be untrue to him.”

“With me, do you mean?” asked Jean, smiling.

“Perhaps with you. Yes, certainly with you!”

And again bursting into laughter, she showed her white teeth, as sound as a puppy’s, while she stared boldly at the young man who appealed so much to her taste.

Alice, abashed by the boldness of the conversation, blushed for her companion. Then wrapping herself in her own thoughts, she fell half asleep and dreamed of the love-match which Isabelle despised, but in connection with which certain lately-seen features dimly presented themselves to her imagination.

Madame Dulaurens, preoccupied about the success of her At Homes during the season, remarked to her son, who was repeating to her some fantastic Madagascar names; “He seems to be quite a hero. We must certainly invite him.”

And her husband, resuming the thread of a long and peaceful conversation, agreed with Madame Orlandi.

“Above all things, calm must be preserved. That is the secret of life.”