When all the reminiscences of Clermont were exhausted, Claude wanted to hear about her life at Madame Vanzade’s, and each week she gave him fresh particulars.  The life led in the little house at Passy, silent and shut off from the outer world, was a very regular one, with no more noise about it than the faint tic-tac of an old-fashioned timepiece.  Two antiquated domestics, a cook and a manservant, who had been with the family for forty years, alone glided in their slippers about the deserted rooms, like a couple of ghosts.  Now and then, at very long intervals, there came a visitor:  some octogenarian general, so desiccated, so slight of build that he scarcely pressed on the carpet.  The house was also the home of shadows; the sun filtered with the mere gleam of a night light through the Venetian blinds.  Since madame had become paralysed in the knees and stone blind, so that she no longer left her room, she had had no other recreation than that of listening to the reading of religious books.  Ah! those endless readings, how they weighed upon the girl at times!  If she had only known a trade, how gladly she would have cut out dresses, concocted bonnets, or goffered the petals of artificial flowers.  And to think that she was capable of nothing, when she had been taught everything, and that there was only enough stuff in her to make a salaried drudge, a semi-domestic!  She suffered horribly, too, in that stiff, lonely dwelling which smelt of the tomb.  She was seized once more with the vertigo of her childhood, as when she had striven to compel herself to work, in order to please her mother; her blood rebelled; she would have liked to shout and jump about, in her desire for life.  But madame treated her so gently, sending her away from her room, and ordering her to take long walks, that she felt full of remoras when, on her return to the Quai de Bourbon, she was obliged to tell a falsehood; to talk of the Bois de Boulogne or invent some ceremony at church where she now never set foot.  Madame seemed to take to her more and more every day; there were constant presents, now a silk dress, now a tiny gold watch, even some underlinen.  She herself was very fond of Madame Vanzade; she had wept one day when the latter had called her daughter; she had sworn never to leave her, such was her heart-felt pity at seeing her so old and helpless.

‘Well,’ said Claude one morning, ’you’ll be rewarded; she’ll leave you her money.’

Christine looked astonished.  ’Do you think so?  It is said that she is worth three millions of francs.  No, no, I have never dreamt of such a thing, and I won’t.  What would become of me?’

Claude had averted his head, and hastily replied, ’Well, you’d become rich, that’s all.  But no doubt she’ll first of all marry you off—­’

On hearing this, Christine could hold out no longer, but burst into laughter.  ’To one of her old friends, eh? perhaps the general who has a silver chin.  What a good joke!’