"He is going to be married."
"He!"
"In a month at latest, to Mademoiselle Roque, the daughter of M. Dambreuse's agent. He has even gone down to Nogent for no other purpose but that."
She placed her hand over her heart, as if at the shock of a great blow; but immediately she rang the bell. Deslauriers did not wait to be ordered to leave. When she turned round he had disappeared.
Madame Arnoux was gasping a little with the strain of her emotions. She drew near the window to get a breath of air.
On the other side of the street, on the footpath, a packer in his shirt-sleeves was nailing down a trunk. Hackney-coaches passed. She closed the window-blinds and then came and sat down. As the high houses in the vicinity intercepted the sun's rays, the light of day stole coldly into the apartment. Her children had gone out; there was not a stir around her. It seemed as if she were utterly deserted.
"He is going to be married! Is it possible?"
And she was seized with a fit of nervous trembling.
"Why is this? Does it mean that I love him?"
Then all of a sudden: