‘I have done a most inconsiderate, rash, weak thing! How came it that I countenanced such shameless, such fantastic prodigality? I fear——’
‘Mother, by that same prodigality I have purchased my happiness,’ said Madeleine solemnly.
‘Oh, my foolish love! ’Tis only children that find their happiness in toys,’ and her mother laughed, in spite of herself. ‘Well, our purse will not now rise above a piece of ferrandine. We must see what we can contrive.’
They walked on, Madeleine in an ecstasy of happiness—last night, the Grecian Sappho, this morning, God’s wise messenger, the mercer—the Lord was indeed on her side!
They were passing the stall of a silk merchant. He was a tight-lipped, austere-looking old man, and he was listening to an elderly bourgeoise, whose expression was even more severe than his own. The smouldering fire in her eye and the harsh significance of her voice, touched their imagination, and they stopped to listen.
‘Ay, as the Prophet tells us, the merchants of Damascus and Dan and Arabia brought in singing ships to the fairs of Tyre, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate, and blue clothes in chests of rich apparel, bound with cords and made of cedar. And where now is Tyre, Master Petit?’
‘Tyre, with its riches and its fairs, and its merchandise and its mariners fell into the midst of the seas in the day of its ruin,’ solemnly chanted in reply Master Petit. Evidently neither he nor the lady considered the words to have any application either to himself or to the costly fabrics in which he was pleased to traffic.
‘Vanity of vanities! ’Tis a lewd and sinful age,’ said the lady, with gloomy satisfaction, ‘I know one old vain, foolish fellow who keeps in my attic a suit of tawdry finery in which to visit bawdy-houses, as if, forsooth, all the purple and fine linen of Solomon himself could add an ounce of comeliness to his antic, foolish face! He would be better advised to lay up the white garment of salvation with sprigs of the lavender of grace, in a coffer of solid gold, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal. I do oft-times say to him: “Monsieur Troqueville——”’
‘Come, my child,’ said Madame Troqueville quietly, moving away.