Madame Perrault saw the force of the argument, and Monsieur Berthier seconded Jules. As for Blanche, she declared that she should not be afraid of the plunge; at Bucharest she had made a plunge of nearly eighty-three feet. So it was agreed that the civil marriage should take place very quietly on the third of January, and the religious ceremony the day after. Jules and his bride could leave Paris by the afternoon train, accompanied by Madeleine. Madame Perrault was anxious to keep any notice out of the papers, if possible; she thought it might injure Blanche professionally. She had been greatly vexed by the paragraph in the Triomphe and had attributed it to Durand; but Jules explained that the Triomphe was not Durand's paper; besides, the journalist had been sent for the winter to the Riviera as correspondent.
On the last day of the year Jules bade farewell to his associates at the wool-house. Most of them regretted his departure, for before his sudden accession of dignity he had been well liked among them. The next morning, on the first day of his emancipation, when he went to the apartment in the rue St. Honoré, he found some pieces of silver there, the gift of his old comrades. He knew at once that the twins had started a subscription for him, and he felt ashamed of his treatment of them during his last weeks among them. He soon forgot about them, however, and was absorbed in the preparations for his new life. He had sold most of his furniture, save a few pieces that were so intimately associated with the memory of his mother that he could not part with them.
For Madeleine this was a trying time; she performed her numerous duties, involving several journeys to the rue St. Honoré, with a look of bewilderment in her face, as if she could not adjust herself to the change that was about to take place in her life.
Two days before the time chosen for their civil marriage, Jules was sitting alone with Blanche, beside the fireplace where he had passed most of his courtship. They had been making plans for Vienna, and Jules felt as if he were already at the head of a household.
"Do you know," he said, glancing at the engagement ring on her left hand that sparkled in the firelight, "I haven't been able to make up my mind yet what to give you for a wedding present. I wish you'd tell me what you'd like. I want to give you something that will please you very much."
She looked intently into the fireplace, and did not reply.
"Isn't there something that you want especially?" Then Jules saw her face flush, and he went on quickly: "Ah, I know there is, but you're afraid to tell. Now, out with it. Is it a diamond brooch, or one of those queer little gold watches that women carry, set with jewels, or one of those bracelets that we saw in the shop in the rue de la Paix the other day?"
She began to laugh, and without turning her eyes toward him, she said:—
"You know I don't care for those things. But there—there is something—"
"Well, out with it."