“Mouri-i-i-i-i-r!” the expressive Madame Dobson would interpose, while her hands wandered feebly over the piano-keys; and die she would, raising her light blue eyes to the ceiling and wildly throwing back her head.  Sidonie never could accomplish it.  Her mischievous eyes, her lips, crimson with fulness of life, were not made for such AEolian-harp sentimentalities.  The refrains of Offenbach or Herve, interspersed with unexpected notes, in which one resorts to expressive gestures for aid, to a motion of the head or the body, would have suited her better; but she dared not admit it to her sentimental instructress.  By the way, although she had been made to sing a great deal at Mademoiselle Le Mire’s, her voice was still fresh and not unpleasing.

Having no social connections, she came gradually to make a friend of her singing-mistress.  She would keep her to breakfast, take her to drive in the new coupe and to assist in her purchases of gowns and jewels.  Madame Dobson’s sentimental and sympathetic tone led one to repose confidence in her.  Her continual repinings seemed too long to attract other repinings.  Sidonie told her of Georges, of their relations, attempting to palliate her offence by blaming the cruelty of her parents in marrying her by force to a man much older than herself.  Madame Dobson at once showed a disposition to assist them; not that the little woman was venal, but she had a passion for passion, a taste for romantic intrigue.  As she was unhappy in her own home, married to a dentist who beat her, all husbands were monsters in her eyes, and poor Risler especially seemed to her a horrible tyrant whom his wife was quite justified in hating and deceiving.

She was an active confidant and a very useful one.  Two or three times a week she would bring tickets for a box at the Opera or the Italiens, or some one of the little theatres which enjoy a temporary vogue, and cause all Paris to go from one end of Paris to the other for a season.  In Risler’s eyes the tickets came from Madame Dobson; she had as many as she chose to the theatres where operas were given.  The poor wretch had no suspicion that one of those boxes for an important “first night” had often cost his partner ten or fifteen Louis.

In the evening, when his wife went away, always splendidly attired, he would gaze admiringly at her, having no suspicion of the cost of her costumes, certainly none of the man who paid for them, and would await her return at his table by the fire, busy with his drawings, free from care, and happy to be able to say to himself, “What a good time she is having!”

On the floor below, at the Fromonts’, the same comedy was being played, but with a transposition of parts.  There it was the young wife who sat by the fire.  Every evening, half an hour after Sidonie’s departure, the great gate swung open to give passage to the Fromont coupe conveying Monsieur to his club.  What would you have?  Business has its demands.  All the great deals are arranged