At that moment she was in her bedroom, packing a trunk, making a pile of her effects—a heartrending occupation. Every object that she touched set in motion whole worlds of thoughts, of memories. There is so much of ourselves in anything that we use. At times the odor of a sachet-bag, the pattern of a bit of lace, were enough to bring tears to her eyes. Suddenly she heard a heavy footstep in the salon, the door of which was partly open; then there was a slight cough, as if to let her know that some one was there. She supposed that it was Risler: for no one else had the right to enter her apartments so unceremoniously. The idea of having to endure the presence of that hypocritical face, that false smile, was so distasteful to her that she rushed to close the door.
“I am not at home to any one.”
The door resisted her efforts, and Sigismond’s square head appeared in the opening.
“It is I, Madame,” he said in an undertone. “I have come to get the money.”
“What money?” demanded Claire, for she no longer remembered why she had gone to Savigny.
“Hush! The funds to meet my note to-morrow. Monsieur Georges, when he went out, told me that you would hand it to me very soon.”
“Ah! yes—true. The hundred thousand francs.”
“I haven’t them, Monsieur Planus; I haven’t anything.”
“Then,” said the cashier, in a strange voice, as if he were speaking to himself, “then it means failure.”
And he turned slowly away.