"Marianne," cried Sulpice, livid with rage.
"Bless me! you speak to me of money? You chant your ruin to me! The De Profundis of your money-box, should I know that? I question with myself as to what it means!—However, knowing you to be financially embarrassed, I have myself found you help—Yes, I told someone who understands how to extricate business men, that you were embarrassed!"
"I?"
"There is nothing to blush about. I told Molina the Tumbler—You know him?"
Did he know him! At that very moment he saw the ruddy gold moon that represented the banker's face amid all the expanse of his shining flesh. He trembled as if in the face of temptation.
"Molina is a man of means," said Marianne. "If you need money, you can have it there! And now, once more, leave me to my new life! The past is as if it had never been!—Bonjour, Bonsoir!—and adieu, go!—Give me your hand!"
She smiled so strangely, half lying on the divan, and stretched out her white hand, which he covered with kisses, murmuring:
"Well, yes, adieu! Yes, adieu!—But once more—once!—this evening—I love you so dearly!—Will you?"
She quietly reached out her bare arm toward a silk bell-rope that she jerked suddenly and Vaudrey rose enraged and humiliated.
"Show Monsieur Vaudrey out," Marianne said to Justine, as she appeared at the door. "Then you may go to bed, my girl!"