“I am going to speak about it to my father,” he said to Mlle. Lucienne.
But whether he had been influenced by M. Costeclar’s insinuations, or for some other reason, M. Favoral had rejected indignantly his son’s request, saying that it was impossible to trust a young man who was ruining himself for the sake of a miserable creature.
Maxence had become crimson with rage on hearing the woman spoken of thus, whom he loved to madness, and who, far from ruining him, was making him.
He returned to the Hotel des Folies in an indescribable state of exasperation.
“There’s the result,” he said to Mlle. Lucienne, “of the step which you have urged me so strongly to take.”
She seemed neither surprised nor irritated.
“Very well,” she replied simply.
But Maxence could not resign himself so quietly to such a cruel disappointment; and, not having the slightest suspicion of Costeclar’s doings,
“And such is,” he added, “the result of all the gossip of these stupid shop-keepers who run to see you every time you go out in the carriage.”
The girl shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. “I expected it,” she said, “the day when I accepted M. Van Klopen’s offers.”