In surprise, he stammered: "Why you—you are mad."
She continued to unwind the hairs and cast them upon the floor. With her woman's instinct she had divined their meaning and gasped in her anger, ready to cry:
"She loves you and she wished you to carry away with you something of hers. Oh, you are a traitor." She uttered a shrill, nervous cry: "Oh, it is an old woman's hair—here is a white one—you have taken a fancy to an old woman now. Then you do not need me—keep the other one." She rose.
He attempted to detain her and stammered: "No—Clo—you are absurd—I do not know whose it is—listen—stay—see—stay—"
But she repeated: "Keep your old woman—keep her—have a chain made of her hair—of her gray hair—there is enough for that—"
Hastily she donned her hat and veil, and when he attempted to touch her she struck him in the face, and made her escape while he was stunned by the blow. When he found that he was alone, he cursed Mme. Walter, bathed his face, and went out vowing vengeance. That time he would not pardon. No, indeed.
He strolled to the boulevard and stopped at a jeweler's to look at a chronometer he had wanted for some time and which would cost eighteen hundred francs. He thought with joy: "If I make my seventy thousand francs, I can pay for it"—and he began to dream of all the things he would do when he got the money. First of all he would become a deputy; then he would buy the chronometer; then he would speculate on 'Change, and then, and then—he did not enter the office, preferring to confer with Madeleine before seeing Walter again and writing his article; he turned toward home. He reached Rue Drouot when he paused; he had forgotten to inquire for Count de Vaudrec, who lived on Chaussee d'Antin. He retraced his steps with a light heart, thinking of a thousand things—of the fortune he would make,—of that rascal of a Laroche, and of old Walter.
He was not at all uneasy as to Clotilde's anger, knowing that she would soon forgive him.
When he asked the janitor of the house in which Count de Vaudrec lived: "How is M. de Vaudrec? I have heard that he has been ailing of late," the man replied; "The Count is very ill, sir; they think he will not live through the night; the gout has reached his heart."
Du Roy was so startled he did not know what to do! Vaudrec dying! He stammered: "Thanks—I will call again"—unconscious of what he was saying. He jumped into a cab and drove home. His wife had returned. He entered her room out of breath: "Did you know? Vaudrec is dying!"