Everything being thus settled, the Marchioness found herself a sharer in a most generous style of living; and although she had declared herself satisfied with a simple promise and willing to rely on the discretion of her children, a very handsome income had been secured to her by the same contract in which the future bride had done so many other liberal and considerate things; the Marquis, on his side, became repossessed of capital enough to represent an ample competence. It is needless to state that he took the recovery of this fortune as calmly as he had borne the loss of it.
While the outfit of the bride was preparing, the Duke busied himself about his presents for her, the funds for their purchase having been forced upon his acceptance by his brother, as a wedding gift. What an affair it was for the Duke to choose diamonds and laces and cashmeres! He understood the lofty science of the toilet better than the most accomplished woman. He hardly found time to eat, passing his days in waiting upon his betrothed, consulting jewellers, merchants, and embroiderers, and telling his mother, who was equally excited over it all, the thousand incidents and even the surprising dramas connected with his marvellous acquisitions. Into the midst of all this heavy fire, in which Caroline and Urbain took only a modest share, Madame d'Arglade glided, as if in her own despite.
A great event had overturned Léonie's way of life and all her plans. At the beginning of the winter, her husband, twenty years her senior and for some time past an invalid, had succumbed to a chronic disease, leaving his affairs complicated enough; though she came out of her embarrassments in triumphant style, thanks to a lucky stroke at the Bourse, for she had gambled in stocks a long time without the knowledge of M. d'Arglade, and had at last laid hands on a fortunate number in the great lottery. So she found herself a widow, still young and handsome, and richer than she had ever been before, all which did not hinder her shedding so many and such big tears that people said of her with admiration, "This poor little woman was really attached to her duty, in spite of her frivolous ways! Certainly M. d'Arglade was not a husband to go distracted over, but she has such a warm heart that she is inconsolable." And thus she was pitied, and many took pains to amuse her: the Marchioness, seriously interested, insisted that she should come and pass her solitary afternoons with her. Nothing was more proper; it was not going into company, for the Marchioness received no visitors until four or five o'clock; it was not even going out, for Léonie could come in a cab without much of a toilet, and as if incognito. Léonie allowed herself to be consoled and amused by watching the preparations for the wedding, and sometimes the Duke would succeed in making her laugh outright; which did very well, because, passing from one kind of nervous excitement to another, she would immediately begin to sob, hiding her face in her handkerchief and saying, "How cruel you are to make me laugh! It does me so much harm."
Through all her despair, Léonie was contriving to win the intimate confidence of the Marchioness so as insensibly to supplant Caroline, who did not perceive this, and was a thousand leagues from suspecting her designs. Now Léonie's main project was this:—
As she saw the health of her disagreeable husband becoming impaired and her own private purse filling out round, Madame d'Arglade asked herself what kind of a successor she should give him, and, as she had not yet been confidentially informed of the marriage already arranged with Mlle de Xaintrailles, she had resolved to confer the right to the vacant living upon the Duke d'Aléria. She thought him "ineligible," on the conditions of fortune united to youth and rank, and said to herself, not without logic and plausibility, that the widow of a respectable and wealthy gentleman, without children, was the best match to which a penniless prodigal, reduced to going on foot and reckoning up accounts with his body-servant, could possibly aspire. Léonie then had no doubt of her success, and while busying herself with much skill in the investment of her capital she said to herself in supreme calm, "Now all is finished, I have plenty of money, I will speculate no more, I will intrigue no more. My ambition, satiated in this direction, must change its object. I must efface the birth-mark of plebeianism, which still incommodes me in society. I must have a title. That of Duchess is well worth the trouble of some thought!"
She had indeed thought of it in time, but M. d'Arglade died too late. She had scarcely laid aside her first mourning crapes, when, on her earliest visit to the Marchioness, she learned that she must think of it no longer.
Léonie then turned her batteries on the Marquis de Villemer. This was less brilliant and more difficult, but still it was satisfactory as a title, and, from her point of view, not impossible. The Marchioness was extremely anxious about her son's bachelor state, the prospect of which as a permanency seemed to have new charms for him in his negligence. She opened her heart to Madame d'Arglade. "He really frightens me," said she, "with his tranquil air. I fear he may have some prejudice—I know not what—against marriage, perhaps against women in general. He is more than timid, he is unsociable, and yet he is charming when you succeed in winning him into familiarity. He needs to meet some woman who will fall in love with him herself first, and then have courage enough to make him love her in return."
Léonie profited by these revelations. "Ah! yes," replied she, giddily, "he needs a wife of higher position than mine, one who is not the widow of the best of men; but somebody who would still have my age, my wealth, and my disposition."
"Your disposition is too impulsive for a man so reserved, my darling."
"And that is why a person of my character would save him. You know about extremes. If I could love any one, which now, alas! is totally impossible, I should certainly fancy a man who is serious and cold. Dear me! Alas! was not that the temperament of my poor husband? Well, his gravity tempered my vivacity, and my liveliness let sunshine into his melancholy. That was his way of putting it, and how often he would mention it! He had never been in love before he met me, and he also had precisely this distaste for marriage. The first time he saw me, he was a little afraid of my frivolity; but all at once he saw that I was necessary to his life, because this apparent thoughtlessness, which you know does n't hinder one from having a good heart, passed into his soul like a light, like a balm. These were his very words, poor dear man! There! stop! let us not talk about people who marry. It makes me feel too keenly that I am alone forever!"