“One day poor Claudine heard that La Palferine was in a critical position; it was a question of meeting a bill of exchange. An unlucky idea occurred to her; she put a tolerably large sum in gold into an exquisitely embroidered purse and went to him.
“‘Who has taught you as to be so bold as to meddle with my household affairs?’ La Palferine cried angrily. ‘Mend my socks and work slippers for me, if it amuses you. So!—you will play the duchess, and you turn the story of Danae against the aristocracy.’
“He emptied the purse into his hand as he spoke, and made as though he would fling the money in her face. Claudine, in her terror, did not guess that he was joking; she shrank back, stumbled over a chair, and fell with her head against the corner of the marble chimney-piece. She thought she should have died. When she could speak, poor woman, as she lay on the bed, all that she said was, ‘I deserved it, Charles!’
“For a moment La Palferine was in despair; his anguish revived Claudine. She rejoiced in the mishap; she took advantage of her suffering to compel La Palferine to take the money and release him from an awkward position. Then followed a variation on La Fontaine’s fable, in which a man blesses the thieves that brought him a sudden impulse of tenderness from his wife. And while we are upon this subject, another saying will paint the man for you.
“Claudine went home again, made up some kind of tale as best she could to account for her bruised forehead, and fell dangerously ill. An abscess formed in the head. The doctor—Bianchon, I believe—yes, it was Bianchon—wanted to cut off her hair. The Duchesse de Berri’s hair is not more beautiful than Claudine’s; she would not hear of it, she told Bianchon in confidence that she could not allow it to be cut without leave from the Comte de Palferine. Bianchon went to Charles Edward. Charles Edward heard him with much seriousness. The doctor had explained the case at length, and showed that it was absolutely necessary to sacrifice the hair to insure the success of the operation.
“‘Cut off Claudine’s hair!’ cried he in peremptory tones. ‘No. I would sooner lose her.’
“Even now, after a lapse of four years, Bianchon still quotes that speech; we have laughed over it for half an hour together. Claudine, informed of the verdict, saw in it a proof of affections; she felt sure that she was loved. In the face of her weeping family, with her husband on his knees, she was inexorable. She kept the hair. The strength that came with the belief that she was loved came to her aid, the operation succeeded perfectly. There are stirrings of the inner life which throw all the calculations of surgery into disorder and baffle the laws of medical science.
“Claudine wrote a delicious letter to La Palferine, a letter in which the orthography was doubtful and the punctuation all to seek, to tell him of the happy result of the operation, and to add that Love was wiser than all the sciences.
“‘Now,’ said La Palferine one day, ‘what am I to do to get rid of Claudine?’
“‘Why, she is not at all troublesome; she leaves you master of your actions,’ objected we.