He asked no further questions, being in his nature not very curious, whether because family matters were of so little consequence to him, or because he had a vague idea that his general behavior deprived him of all right to their confidence.

“Very well, then,” he said in a gruff tone, “let us all go to bed.  I have worked so hard to-day, that I am quite exhausted.  People who pretend that business is dull make me laugh.  Never has M. de Thaller been in the way of making so much money as now.”

When he spoke, they obeyed.  So that Mlle. Gilberte was thus going to have the whole night before her to resume possession of herself, to pass over in her mind the events of the evening, and deliberate coolly upon the decision she must come to; for, she could not doubt it, Mme. Favoral would, the very next day, renew her questions.

What should she say?  All?  Mlle. Gilberte felt disposed to do so by all the aspirations of her heart, by the certainty of indulgent complicity, by the thought of finding in a sympathetic soul the echo of her joys, of her troubles, and of her hopes.

Yes.  But Mme. Favoral was still the same woman, whose firmest resolutions vanished under the gaze of her husband.  Let a pretender come; let a struggle begin, as in the case of M. Costeclar,—­would she have strength enough to remain silent?  No!

Then it would be a fearful scene with M. Favoral.  He might, perhaps, even go to M. de Tregars.  What scandal!  For he was a man who spared no one; and then a new obstacle would rise between them, more insurmountable still than the others.

Mlle. Gilberte was thinking, too, of Marius’s projects; of that terrible game he was about to play, the issue of which was to decide their fate.  He had said enough to make her understand all its perils, and that a single indiscretion might suffice to set at nought the result of many months’ labor and patience.  Besides, to speak, was it not to abuse Marius’s confidence.  How could she expect another to keep a secret she had been unable to keep herself?

At last, after protracted and painful hesitation, she decided that she was bound to silence, and that she would only vouchsafe the vaguest explanations.

It was in vain, then, that, on the next and the following days, Mme. Favoral tried to obtain that confession which she had seen, as it were, rise to her daughter’s lips.  To her passionate adjurations, to her tears, to her ruses even, Mlle. Gilberte invariably opposed equivocal answers, a story through which nothing could be guessed, save one of those childish romances which stop at the preface,—­a schoolgirl love for a chimerical hero.

There was nothing in this very reassuring to a mother; but Mme. Favoral knew her daughter too well to hope to conquer her invincible obstinacy.  She insisted no more, appeared convinced, but resolved to exercise the utmost vigilance.  In vain, however, did she display all the penetration of which she was capable.  The severest attention did not reveal to her a single suspicious fact, not a circumstance from which she could draw an induction, until, at last, she thought that she must have been mistaken.