Renée then no longer insisted. She shed hot tears when she was alone. On the morrow, with a sick person's whimsicality, she decided to accompany Céleste to the Western Railway station, in her own brougham. She gave her one of her travelling rugs and made her a present in money, and showed her the attentions of a mother whose daughter is about to start upon some long difficult journey. In the brougham she looked at her with moist eyes. Céleste chatted and said how pleased she was to go away. Then emboldened, she spoke out and gave some advice to her mistress.
"I shouldn't have understood life like you, madame. I often said to myself when I found you with Monsieur Maxime: 'Is it possible one can be so foolish for men!' It always ends badly—Ah! for my part I always mistrusted them!"
She laughed and threw herself back in the corner of the brougham:
"My money would have danced!" she continued, "and now-a-days I should be destroying my eyes with crying. So whenever I saw a man I took up a broomstick—I never dared to tell you all that. Besides, it didn't concern me. You were free to do as you liked, and I only had to earn my money honestly."
At the railway station Renée insisted upon paying her fare and took her a first class ticket. As they had arrived before the time, she detained her, pressing her hands and repeating:
"And take good care of yourself, don't neglect your health, my good Céleste."
The latter allowed herself to be caressed. She stood looking happy, with a fresh smiling face, before her mistress's tearful eyes. Renée again spoke of the past, and the maid abruptly exclaimed:
"I was forgetting: I didn't tell you the story of Baptiste, master's valet. Probably no one has liked to tell you."
The young woman owned that she indeed knew nothing.
"Well, you remember his grand dignified airs, his disdainful glances, you yourself spoke to me about them. It was all so much acting. He didn't care for women, he never came down to the servants' hall when we were there; I can repeat it now, he even pretended that it was disgusting in the drawing-room, on account of all the low-neck dresses. I well believe that he didn't care for women!"