“Two innocents,” Marianne said to herself, “the one thirsts for virtue, the other for vice.”

Should she confess everything to Sulpice as she had done to Rosas?  Yes, perhaps, if she discovered no better way, but a better plan had to be found, sought, or invented.  Find what?  Borrow?  Ask?  Whom?  Guy?  She would not dare to do so, even supposing that Lissac was sufficiently well off.  Then she wished to keep up appearances, even in Guy’s eyes.  Further, she had never forgiven him for running off to Italy.  She never would forget it.  No, no, she would ask nothing from Guy.

To whom, then, should she apply?  She again found herself in the frightful extremity of those who, in that almost limitless Paris, involved in the terrible intricacies of that madly-directed machine, seek money, a loan, some help, an outstretched hand, but who find nothing, not an effort to help them in all its crowd.  She was overcome with rage and hatred.  Nothing! she had nothing!  She would have sold herself to any person whatsoever, to have speedily obtained a few of the luxuries she required.  Yes; sold herself now, to sell herself more dearly to-morrow.

Sold!  Suddenly from the depths of her memory she recalled a form, confused at first, but quickly remembered vividly, of an old woman against whom she had formerly jostled, in the chance life she had led, and who, once beautiful, and still clever and rich, it was said, had been seized with a friendly desire to protect Marianne.  It was a long time since the young woman had thought of Claire Dujarrier.  She met her occasionally, her white locks hidden under a copious layer of golden powder, looking as yellow as sawdust.  The old woman had said to her: 

“Whenever you need advice or assistance, do not forget my address:  Rue La Fontaine, Auteuil.”

Marianne had thanked her at the time, and had forgotten all about it till now, when in the anguish of her pursuit she recalled the name and features of Claire Dujarrier as from the memories of yesterday.  Claire Dujarrier, a former danseuse, whose black eyes, diamonds, wild extravagance, and love adventures were notorious formerly, had for the last two or three years buried herself in a little house, fearing that she would be assassinated; she kept her diamonds in iron-lined safes built in the wall, and had a young lover, a clerk in a novelty store, who was stronger than a market-house porter, and who from time to time assumed a high tone and before whom she stood in awe.

“Claire Dujarrier!  The very thing!—­Why not?” thought Marianne.

She had been introduced to the ex-danseuse by Guy de Lissac.  He was considered as one of Claire’s old lovers.  They quarrelled when the old dame had heard one of Guy’s bons mots that had become familiar at the Club: 

“When I see her, I always feel a slight emotion:  she recalls my youth to me!—­But alas! not hers!”

Claire was well-off and perhaps miserly.  Marianne instinctively felt, however, that she would get help at her hands.