CONFESSION

Madame Desvarennes understood the situation at a glance.  She beheld Cayrol livid, tottering, and excited.  She felt Jeanne trembling on her breast; she saw something serious had occurred.  She calmed herself and put on a cold manner to enable her the better to suppress any resistance that they might offer.

“What is the matter?” she asked, looking severely at Cayrol.

“Something quite unexpected,” replied the banker, laughing nervously.  “Madame refuses to follow me.”

“And for what reason?” she asked.

“She dare not speak!” Cayrol resumed, whose excitement increased as he spoke.  “It appears she has in her heart an unhappy love!  And as I do not resemble the dreamed-of type, Madame has repugnances.  But you understand the affair is not going to end there.  It is not usual to come and say to a husband, twelve hours after marriage, ’Sir, I am very sorry, but I love somebody else!’ It would be too convenient.  I shall not lend myself to these whims.”

“Cayrol, oblige me by speaking in a, lower tone,” said Madame Desvarennes, quietly.  “There is some misunderstanding between you and this child.”

The husband shrugged his broad shoulders.

“A misunderstanding?  Faith!  I think so!  You have a delicacy of language which pleases me!  A misunderstanding!  Say rather a shameful deception!  But I want to know the gentleman’s name.  She will have to speak.  I am not a scented, educated gentleman.  I am a peasant, and if I have to—­”

“Enough,” said Madame Desvarennes, sharply tapping with the tips of her fingers Cayrol’s great fist which he held menacingly like a butcher about to strike.  Then, taking him quietly aside toward the window, she added: 

“You are a fool to go on like this!  Go to my room for a moment.  To you, now, she will not say anything; to me she will confide all and we shall know what to do.”

Cayrol’s face brightened.

“You are right,” he said.  “Yes, as ever, you are right.  You must excuse rile, I do not know how to talk to women.  Rebuke her and put a little sense in her head.  But don’t leave her; she is fit to commit any folly.”

Madame Desvarennes smiled.

“Be easy,” she answered.

And making a sign to Cayrol, who was leaving the room, she returned to Jeanne.

“Come, my child, compose yourself.  We are alone and you will tell me what happened.  Among women we understand each other.  Come, you were frightened, eh?”

Jeanne was one petrified, immovable, and dumb, she fixed her eyes on a flower which was hanging from a vase.  This red flower fascinated her.  She could not take her eyes off it.  Within her a persistent thought recurred:  that of her irremediable misfortune.  Madame Desvarennes looked at her for a moment; then, gently touching her shoulder, resumed;

“Won’t you answer me?  Have you not confidence in me?  Have I not brought you up?  And if you are not born of me, have not the tenderness and care I have lavished upon you made me your real mother?”