"And when shall you move into the house?" inquired Prudence.
"As soon as possible."
"Will you take your horses and carriage?"
"I shall take the whole house, and you can look after my place while I
am away."
A week later Marguerite was settled in her country house, and I was
installed at Point du Jour.
Then began an existence which I shall have some difficulty in describing
to you. At first Marguerite could not break entirely with her former
habits, and, as the house was always en fete, all the women whom
she knew came to see her. For a whole month there was not a day when
Marguerite had not eight or ten people to meals. Prudence, on her side,
brought down all the people she knew, and did the honours of the house
as if the house belonged to her.
The duke's money paid for all that, as you may imagine; but from time
to time Prudence came to me, asking for a note for a thousand francs,
professedly on behalf of Marguerite. You know I had won some money at
gambling; I therefore immediately handed over to Prudence what she
asked for Marguerite, and fearing lest she should require more than I
possessed, I borrowed at Paris a sum equal to that which I had already
borrowed and paid back. I was then once more in possession of some ten
thousand francs, without reckoning my allowance. However, Marguerite's
pleasure in seeing her friends was a little moderated when she saw the
expense which that pleasure entailed, and especially the necessity she
was sometimes in of asking me for money. The duke, who had taken the
house in order that Marguerite might rest there, no longer visited it,
fearing to find himself in the midst of a large and merry company, by
whom he did not wish to be seen. This came about through his having once
arrived to dine tete-a-tete with Marguerite, and having fallen upon
a party of fifteen, who were still at lunch at an hour when he was
prepared to sit down to dinner. He had unsuspectingly opened the
dining-room door, and had been greeted by a burst of laughter, and had
had to retire precipitately before the impertinent mirth of the women
who were assembled there.
Marguerite rose from table, and joined the duke in the next room, where
she tried, as far as possible, to induce him to forget the incident, but
the old man, wounded in his dignity, bore her a grudge for it, and could
not forgive her. He said to her, somewhat cruelly, that he was tired of
paying for the follies of a woman who could not even have him treated
with respect under his own roof, and he went away in great indignation.