In Claire’s circle her welcome was decidedly cold.  The Faubourg Saint-Germain has its pretensions; but do not imagine that the Marais has none!  Those wives and daughters of mechanics, of wealthy manufacturers, knew little Chebe’s story; indeed, they would have guessed it simply by her manner of making her appearance and by her demeanor among them.

Sidonie’s efforts were unavailing.  She retained the manners of a shop-girl.  Her slightly artificial amiability, sometimes too humble, was as unpleasant as the spurious elegance of the shop; and her disdainful attitudes recalled the superb airs of the head saleswomen in the great dry-goods establishments, arrayed in black silk gowns, which they take off in the dressing-room when they go away at night—­who stare with an imposing air, from the vantage-point of their mountains of curls, at the poor creatures who venture to discuss prices.

She felt that she was being examined and criticised, and her modesty was compelled to place itself upon a war footing.  Of the names mentioned in her presence, the amusements, the entertainments, the books of which they talked to her, she knew nothing.  Claire did her best to help her, to keep her on the surface, with a friendly hand always outstretched; but many of these ladies thought Sidonie pretty; that was enough to make them bear her a grudge for seeking admission to their circle.  Others, proud of their husbands’ standing and of their wealth, could not invent enough unspoken affronts and patronizing phrases to humiliate the little parvenue.

Sidonie included them all in a single phrase:  “Claire’s friends—­that is to say, my enemies!” But she was seriously incensed against but one.

The two partners had no suspicion of what was taking place between their wives.  Risler, continually engrossed in his press, sometimes remained at his draughting-table until midnight.  Fromont passed his days abroad, lunched at his club, was almost never at the factory.  He had his reasons for that.

Sidonie’s proximity disturbed him.  His capricious passion for her, that passion that he had sacrificed to his uncle’s last wishes, recurred too often to his memory with all the regret one feels for the irreparable; and, conscious that he was weak, he fled.  His was a pliable nature, without sustaining purpose, intelligent enough to appreciate his failings, too weak to guide itself.  On the evening of Risler’s wedding—­he had been married but a few months himself—­he had experienced anew, in that woman’s presence, all the emotion of the stormy evening at Savigny.  Thereafter, without self-examination, he avoided seeing her again or speaking with her.  Unfortunately, as they lived in the same house, as their wives saw each other ten times a day, chance sometimes brought them together; and this strange thing happened—­that the husband, wishing to remain virtuous, deserted his home altogether and sought distraction elsewhere.