“Wife, you’ll ruin us.”

The mistress calmed the poor man’s alarm; she tried to impart to him some of her confidence, to animate him with her hope, but without success, so she went on without him.  A mill was for sale at Jouy, on the banks of the Oise; she paid ready money for it, and a few weeks later the bakery in the Rue Vivienne was independent of every one.  She ground her own flour, and from that time business increased considerably.  Feeling capable of carrying out large undertakings, and, moreover, desirous of giving up the meannesses of retail trade, Madame Desvarennes, one fine day, sent in a tender for supplying bread to the military hospitals.  It was accepted, and from that time the house ranked among the most important.  On seeing the Desvarennes take their daring flight, the leading men in the trade had said: 

“They have system and activity, and if they do not upset on the way, they will attain a high position.”

But the mistress seemed to have the gift of divination.  She worked surely—­if she struck out one way you might be certain that success was there.  In all her enterprises, “good luck” stood close by her; she scented failures from afar, and the firm never made a bad debt.  Still Michel continued to tremble.  The first mill had been followed by many more; then the old system appeared insufficient to Madame Desvarennes.  As she wished to keep up with the increase of business she had steam-mills built,—­which are now grinding three hundred million francs’ worth of corn every year.

Fortune had favored the house immensely, but Michel continued to tremble.  From time to time when the mistress launched out a new business, he timidly ventured on his usual saying: 

“Wife, you’re going to ruin us.”

But one felt it was only for form’s sake, and that he himself no longer meant what he said.  Madame Desvarennes received this plaintive remonstrance with a calm smile, and answered, maternally, as to a child: 

“There, there, don’t be frightened.”

Then she would set to work again, and direct with irresistible vigor the army of clerks who peopled her counting-houses.

In fifteen years’ time, by prodigious efforts of will and energy, Madame Desvarennes had made her way from the lonely and muddy Rue Neuve-Coquenard to the mansion in the Rue Saint-Dominique.  Of the bakery there was no longer question.  It was some time since the business in the Rue Vivienne had been transferred to the foreman of the shop.  The flour trade alone occupied Madame Desvarennes’s attention.  She ruled the prices in the market; and great bankers came to her office and did business with her on a footing of equality.  She did not become any prouder for it, she knew too well the strength and weakness of life to have pride; her former plain dealing had not stiffened into self-sufficiency.  Such as one had known her when beginning business, such one found her in the zenith of her fortune.