“What is the matter?” he asked the duchess.

“Calyste did not come home; this is the first time; my poor daughter is in despair.”

“Madame la duchesse,” said Maxime, drawing the pious lady into the embrasure of a window, “for Heaven’s sake keep the utmost secrecy as to my efforts, and ask d’Ajuda to do the same; for if Calyste ever hears of our plot there will be a duel between him and me to the death.  When I told you that the affair would not cost much, I meant that you would not be obliged to spend enormous sums; but I do want twenty thousand francs; the rest is my affair; there may be important places to be given, a receiver-generalship possibly.”

The duchess and Maxime left the room.  When Madame de Grandlieu returned to her daughter, she again listened to Sabine’s dithyrambics inlaid with family facts even more cruel than those which had already crushed the young wife’s happiness.

“Don’t be so troubled, my darling,” said the duchess.  “Beatrix will pay dear for your tears and sufferings; the hand of Satan is upon her; she will meet with ten humiliations for every one she has inflicted upon you.”

Madame Schontz had invited Claude Vignon, who, on several occasions, had expressed a wish to know Maxime de Trailles personally.  She also invited Couture, Fabien, Bixiou, Leon de Lora, La Palferine, and Nathan.  The latter was asked by Rochefide on account of Maxime.  Aurelie thus expected nine guests, all men of the first ability, with the exception of du Ronceret; but the Norman vanity and the brutal ambition of the Heir were fully on a par with Claude Vignon’s literary power, Nathan’s poetic gift, La Palferine’s finesse, Couture’s financial eye, Bixiou’s wit, Finot’s shrewdness, Maxime’s profound diplomacy, and Leon de Lora’s genius.

Madame Schontz, anxious to appear both young and beautiful, armed herself with a toilet which that sort of woman has the art of making.  She wore a guipure pelerine of spidery texture, a gown of blue velvet, the graceful corsage of which was buttoned with opals, and her hair in bands as smooth and shining as ebony.  Madame Schontz owed her celebrity as a pretty woman to the brilliancy and freshness of a complexion as white and warm as that of Creoles, to a face full of spirited details, the features of which were clearly and firmly drawn, —­a type long presented in perennial youth by the Comtesse Merlin, and which is perhaps peculiar to Southern races.  Unhappily, little Madame Schontz had tended towards ebonpoint ever since her life had become so happy and calm.  Her neck, of exquisite roundness, was beginning to take on flesh about the shoulders; but in France the heads of women are principally treasured; so that fine heads will often keep an ill-formed body unobserved.

“My dear child,” said Maxime, coming in and kissing Madame Schontz on the forehead, “Rochefide wanted me to see your establishment; why, it is almost in keeping with his four hundred thousand francs a year.  Well, well, he would never have had them if he hadn’t known you.  In less than five years you have made him save what others—­Antonia, Malaga, Cadine, or Florentine—­would have made him lose.”