“They’ll find my property when I am dead,” he often said.

Acting upon that principle, he had married off his daughter, the elder Madame Fromont, without one sou of dowry, and he never forgave his son-in-law for having made a fortune without assistance from him.  For it was one of the peculiarities of that nature, made up of vanity and selfishness in equal parts, to wish that every one he knew should need his help, should bow before his wealth.  When the Fromonts expressed in his presence their satisfaction at the prosperous turn their business was beginning to take, his sharp, cunning, little blue eye would smile ironically, and he would growl, “We shall see what it all comes to in the end,” in a tone that made them tremble.  Sometimes, too, at Savigny, in the evening, when the park, the avenues, the blue slates of the chateau, the red brick of the stables, the ponds and brooks shone resplendent, bathed in the golden glory of a lovely sunset, this eccentric parvenu would say aloud before his children, after looking about him: 

“The one thing that consoles me for dying some day is that no one in the family will ever be rich enough to keep a chateau that costs fifty thousand francs a year to maintain.”

And yet, with that latter-day tenderness which even the sternest grandfathers find in the depths of their hearts, old Gardinois would gladly have made a pet of his granddaughter.  But Claire, even as a child, had felt an invincible repugnance for the former peasant’s hardness of heart and vainglorious selfishness.  And when affection forms no bonds between those who are separated by difference in education, such repugnance is increased by innumerable trifles.  When Claire married Georges, the grandfather said to Madame Fromont: 

“If your daughter wishes, I will give her a royal present; but she must ask for it.”

But Claire received nothing, because she would not ask for anything.

What a bitter humiliation to come, three years later, to beg a hundred thousand francs from the generosity she had formerly spurned, to humble herself, to face the endless sermons, the sneering raillery, the whole seasoned with Berrichon jests, with phrases smacking of the soil, with the taunts, often well-deserved, which narrow, but logical, minds can utter on occasion, and which sting with their vulgar patois like an insult from an inferior!

Poor Claire!  Her husband and her father were about to be humiliated in her person.  She must necessarily confess the failure of the one, the downfall of the house which the other had founded and of which he had been so proud while he lived.  The thought that she would be called upon to defend all that she loved best in the world made her strong and weak at the same time.

It was eleven o’clock when she reached Savigny.  As she had given no warning of her visit, the carriage from the chateau was not at the station, and she had no choice but to walk.