But, the young woman became more and more disturbed. All the silence of the house weighed upon her shoulders, and she would have given a great deal for the lace of her dress to have been black. Her father's gaze embarrassed her to such a point that she considered Worms really ridiculous to have imagined such high flounces.
"How smart you are, my girl!" suddenly said Aunt Élisabeth, who had not yet even noticed her niece's lace.
She stopped knitting and settled her spectacles to see the better. Monsieur Béraud Du Châtel gave a faint smile.
"It is rather white," said he. "A woman must be greatly embarrassed with that on the side-walks."
"But one doesn't go out on foot, father!" cried Renée, who immediately afterwards regretted these words from her heart.
The old gentleman seemed about to reply. Then he rose up, straightened his high stature and began walking slowly, without again looking at his daughter. The latter remained quite pale with emotion. Each time that she exhorted herself to take courage, and that she tried to find a transition that would lead up to the request for money, she experienced a shooting pain at the heart.
"We never see you now, father," she murmured.
"Oh!" replied her aunt, "your father hardly ever goes out except at long intervals to stroll in the Jardin des Plantes. And I even have to get angry to make him do that! He pretends that he loses himself in Paris, that the city is no longer made for him. Ah! you do right to scold him!"
"My husband would be so happy to see you at our Thursdays, from time to time," continued the young woman.
Monsieur Béraud Du Châtel took a few steps in silence. Then in a quiet voice: "You must thank your husband for me," he said. "He is an active fellow, it appears, and I hope, for your sake, that he conducts his enterprises honestly. But we haven't the same ideas, and I feel ill at ease in your fine house in the Parc Monceaux."