With a look, the latter silenced him. What had he to do with it?
“Certainly we are extremely honored,” she replied with calculated slowness. “The honor takes us by surprise. We were not at all prepared for it.”
“Alice did not tell you anything about it then? ... or are you trifling with me?” asked Madame Guibert in great surprise.
“Your family has not very much to boast of,” went on Madame Dulaurens quietly. “We know, Madame, that Monsieur Guibert ruined himself to save his brother at Annecy. Unhappily he was unable to save him from suicide and ... liquidation of his affairs.”
The word “liquidation” thus pronounced meant bankruptcy; and Madame Guibert could not fail to understand the malice in these words. She had come with a message of love and peace, and was received like an enemy. The injustice brought the blood to her face, and her clear, gentle eyes were troubled. From this point, without being able to explain the feeling to herself, she felt the game was lost. However, she continued:
“Oh, there was no liquidation. All the creditors were paid principal and interest. There can be no possible doubt about that. We have as good a reputation at Annecy as at Chambéry.”
She thought of her husband’s splendid courage and her little Paule’s lost dowry. In what had all these sacrifices ended? And was money to be henceforth the only thing that could command respect and esteem?
But her sufferings were not yet at an end. Madame Dulaurens, with that ease which society life supplies, went on boldly, with a smile on her lips:
“Captain Guibert has had a magnificent career. Decorated so young! You know that nobody appreciates his worth more than I. How you must have suffered through this long, long Madagascar campaign! We thought of you so often and pitied and envied you at the same time. And tell me, has he quite gotten over the effects of those dreadful fevers which take so long to cure?”
The cup was full. Madame Guibert could not answer. If she had tried to speak she would have Burst into tears. They had touched the sacred place in her heart, her children. To sacrifice your fortune to save the honor of your name, to give your sons for your country, to expose them to death, only to hear wicked, lying allusions, discrediting disinterestedness and heroism, and to have to accept them in the face of that coterie which is called society!