It was evidently with perfect frankness that she was speaking, and with the pleasure one feels in telling an extraordinary adventure. But suddenly she stopped short, as if discovering that she was forgetting herself, and going farther than was proper.
And it was only after a moment of reflection that she went on,
“It was like fairyland to me. I had never tasted the opulence of the great, you see, and I had never had any money except that which I earned. So, during the first days, I did nothing but run up and down stairs, admiring everything, feeling everything with my own hands, and looking at myself in the glass to make sure that I was not dreaming. I rang the bell just to make the servants come up; I spent hours trying dresses; then I’d have the horses put to the carriage, and either ride to the bois, or go out shopping. M. Vincent gave me as much money as I wanted; and it seemed as though I never spent enough. I shout, I was like a mad woman.”
A cloud appeared upon Mme. Zelie’s countenance, and, changing suddenly her tone and her manner,
“Unfortunately,” she went on, “one gets tired of every thing. At the end of two weeks I knew the house from top to bottom, and after a month I was sick of the whole thing; so that one night I began dressing.
“‘Where do you want to go?’ Amanda asked me.
‘Why, to Mabille, to dance a quadrille, or two.’
‘Impossible!’
‘Why?’
‘Because M. Vincent does not wish you to go out at night.’
‘We’ll see about that!’
“The next day, I tell all this to M. Vincent; and he says that Amanda is right; that it is not proper for a woman in my position to frequent balls; and that, if I want to go out at night, I can stay. Get out! I tell you what, if it hadn’t been for the fine carriage, and all that, I would have cleared out that minute. Any way, I became disgusted from that moment, and have been more and more ever since; and, if M. Vincent had not himself left, I certainly would.”
“To go where?”
“Anywhere. Look here, now! do you suppose I need a man to support me! No, thank Heaven! Little Zelie, here present, has only to apply to any dressmaker, and she’ll be glad to give her four francs a day to run the machine. And she’ll be free, at least; and she can laugh and dance as much as she likes.”
M. de Tregars had made a mistake: he had just discovered it.