Alas! she rejoiced too soon.
Raoul’s intimacy with his cousins threw him among a set of rich young men, whose extravagance he not only imitated, but surpassed. He daily grew more dissipated and reckless. Gambling, racing, expensive suppers, made money slip through his fingers like grains of sand.
This proud young man, whose sensitive delicacy not long since made him refuse to accept aught save affection from his mother, now never approached her without demanding large sums of money.
At first she gave with pleasure, not stopping to count the rolls of notes she would eagerly run to bring him. But as he each time increased his demands, until they finally reached a sum far larger than she could bestow, her eyes were opened to the ruinous effects of her lavish generosity.
This rich woman, whose magnificent diamonds, elegant toilets, and superb equipages were the admiration and envy of Paris, now suffered the keenest torture. She had no more money to give her son; and what so pains the female heart as being unable to gratify the wishes of a beloved being?
Her husband never thought of giving her a fixed sum for the year’s expenses, or of asking how she disposed of her money. The day after the wedding he gave her a key to his secretary, and told her, that what was his was hers, to use as she thought best. And, ever since, she had been in the habit of freely taking all the money necessary for keeping up the hospitable, elegant house over which she so gracefully presided; for her own dress, and many charitable purposes that the world never knew of.
But the fact of her having always been so modest in her personal expenses that her husband used to jestingly say that he was afraid she would end by being a miser; and her judicious, well-regulated management of household expenditures, causing her to spend much the same amount each year—prevented her now being able to dispose of large sums, without giving rise to embarrassing questions.
M. Fauvel, the most generous of millionaires, delighted to see his wife indulge in any extravagance, no matter how foolish; but he would naturally expect to see traces of the money spent, something to show for it.
The banker might suddenly discover that double the usual amount of money was used in the house; and, if he should ask the cause of this astonishing outlay, what answer could she give?
In three months, Raoul had squandered a little fortune. In the first place, he was obliged to have bachelor’s apartments, prettily furnished, and a handsome outfit from a fashionable tailor, besides the thousand little things indispensable to a society man; he must have a blooded horse and a coupe. His doting mother felt it her duty to give him these luxuries, when her other sons were enjoying everything of the sort, besides many other advantages of which her poor Raoul was deprived. But each day the extravagance of his fancies increased, and Mme. Fauvel began to be alarmed when his demands far exceeded her ability to gratify them.