“You! who live in the midst of pleasure and luxury, in a house of your own? And on the eve of an entertainment which will be the talk of Paris for ten years—which is to cost Nucingen twenty thousand francs! There are to be strawberries in mid-February, they say, asparagus, grapes, melons!—and a thousand crowns’ worth of flowers in the rooms.”
“What are you talking about? There are a thousand crowns’ worth of roses on the stairs alone.”
“And your gown is said to have cost ten thousand francs?”
“Yes, it is of Brussels point, and Delphine, his wife, is furious. But I had a fancy to be disguised as a bride.”
“Where are the ten thousand francs?” asked Madame du Val-Noble.
“It is all the ready money I have,” said Esther, smiling. “Open my table drawer; it is under the curl-papers.”
“People who talk of dying never kill themselves,” said Madame du Val-Noble. “If it were to commit——”
“A crime? For shame!” said Esther, finishing her friend’s thought, as she hesitated. “Be quite easy, I have no intention of killing anybody. I had a friend—a very happy woman; she is dead, I must follow her—that is all.”
“How foolish!”
“How can I help it? I promised her I would.”