Once in the brougham, Constance spoke but seldom to Charlotte, taking as a pretext a violent headache which the prolonged lunch had increased.  With a weary air and her eyes half closed she began to reflect.  After Rose’s death, and when little Christophe likewise had been carried off, a revival of hope had come to her, for all at once she had felt quite young again.  But when she consulted Boutan on the matter he dealt her a final blow by informing her that her hopes were quite illusive.  Thus, for two months now, her rage and despair had been increasing.  That very morning at that christening, and now in that carriage beside that young woman who was again expecting to become a mother, it was this which poisoned her mind, filled her with jealousy and spite, and rendered her capable of any evil deed.  The loss of her son, the childlessness to which she was condemned, all threw her into a state of morbid perversity, fraught with dreams of some monstrous vengeance which she dared not even confess to herself.  She accused the whole world of being in league to crush her.  Her husband was the most cowardly and idiotic of traitors, for he betrayed her by letting some fresh part of the works pass day by day into the hands of that fellow Blaise, whose wife no sooner lost a child than she had another.  She, Constance, was enraged also at seeing her husband so gay and happy, since she had left him to his own base courses.  He still retained his air of victorious superiority, declaring that he had remained unchanged, and there was truth in this; for though, instead of being an active master as formerly, he now too often showed himself a senile prowler, on the high road to paralysis, he yet continued to be a practical egotist, one who drew from life the greatest sum of enjoyment possible.  He was following his destined road, and if he took to Blaise it was simply because he was delighted to have found an intelligent, hard-working young man who spared him all the cares and worries that were too heavy for his weary shoulders, while still earning for him the money which he needed for his pleasures.  Constance knew that something in the way of a partnership arrangement was about to be concluded.  Indeed, her husband must have already received a large sum to enable him to make good certain losses and expenses which he had hidden from her.  And closing her eyes as the brougham rolled along, she poisoned her mind by ruminating all these things, scarce able to refrain from venting her fury by throwing herself upon that young woman Charlotte, well-loved and fruitful spouse, who sat beside her.

Then the thought of Denis occurred to her.  Why was he being taken to the works?  Did he also mean to rob her?  Yet she knew that he had refused to join his brother, as in his opinion there was not room for two at the establishment of the Boulevard de Grenelle.  Indeed, Denis’s ambition was to direct some huge works by himself; he possessed an extensive knowledge of mechanics, and this it was