"Oh! that's finished, quite finished—I can prove it to you if you like. Don't you know then that little Michelin has pleased Baron Gouraud? It's incredible. Every one who knows the baron is amazed. And now she's on the way to obtaining the red ribbon for her husband! Ah, she's a woman of spirit. She isn't faint-hearted, she doesn't need any one to steer her boat."
Madame Sidonie said this with an air of some little regret mingled with admiration.
"But to return to Monsieur de Saffré—It would seem that he met you at an actresses' ball, muffled up in a domino, and he even accuses himself of having somewhat cavalierly offered you a supper. Is it true?"
The young woman was quite surprised.
"Perfectly true," murmured she; "but who could have told him?"
"Wait a bit, he pretends that he recognised you later on, when you were no longer in the room, and that he remembered having seen you leave on Maxime's arm. Since then he has been madly in love. It has grown in his heart, you understand, been a sudden fancy. He came to see me to beg me to make you his apologies—"
"Well, tell him that I forgive him," interrupted Renée negligently.
And again assailed by all her worries, she continued:
"Ah! my good Sidonie, I am awfully bothered. It is absolutely necessary that I should have fifty thousand francs to-morrow morning. I came to speak to you about the matter. You know some money-lenders, you told me."
The agent, vexed by the abrupt manner in which her sister-in-law had interrupted her story, made her wait some time for an answer.