Her first idea was to ask her husband for the 50,000 francs. She came to that decision only with reluctance. The last time he had entered her room to give her money, he had again planted kisses on her neck and held her hand and whispered sweet nothings in her ear. Women are acutely perceptive when it comes to divining the intentions of men. So she expected some demand from him, a tacit bargain sealed with a smile. And indeed, when she asked him for the 50,000 francs, he uttered a cry and said that Larsonneau would never lend that much and that he himself was still short of cash. But then his tone changed, as though he had been overcome by sudden emotion. “It’s impossible to refuse you anything,” he whispered. “I shall scour all of Paris for you and do the impossible. . . . I want you to be happy, my dear.”

Then he put his lips to her ear, kissed her hair, and said with a trembling voice, “I shall bring you the money tomorrow night, in your room. . . . Without a note to sign.”

But she quickly interjected that she was in no rush and did not want to put him to so much trouble. Although he had just put all his heart into that dangerous phrase, “without a note to sign,” which he had allowed to escape his lips and which he now regretted, he did not seem put out by her rejection. Straightening up, he said, “Well, then, as you wish. . . . I shall find you the money when the time comes. Larsonneau will not be involved, you understand. I mean to make you a gift.”

He smiled good-naturedly. She remained cruelly torn. She felt she would lose what little equilibrium she had left if she gave in to her husband. Her one remaining pride was that, while married to the father, she was the wife of none but the son. Frequently, when Maxime seemed cold to her, she tried to make him understand with the most transparent of allusions how things stood between her and her husband. Yet the young man, whom she expected to fall at her feet after these confessions, remained utterly unmoved, no doubt thinking that she merely wanted to reassure him that there was no possibility of his running into his father in the gray silk bedroom.

After Saccard left her, she dressed hastily and gave orders to hitch up her horses. In the carriage on the way to the Ile Saint-Louis, she went over in her mind how she was going to ask her father for the 50,000 francs. She had embraced this idea suddenly and refused to examine it closely, for in her heart she felt very cowardly and was seized with unspeakable fear regarding her chosen course of action. When she arrived, the courtyard of the Béraud mansion, as damp and dreary as a cloister, sent a chill through her, and as she climbed the wide stone staircase and listened to the echoes of her high-heeled boots, she felt like fleeing. In her haste, she had been foolish enough to wear a dress of feuillemorte silk with long flounces of white lace, trimmed with satin bows and tucked in at the waist by a belt pleated like a sash. This outfit, topped off by a small toque with a long white veil, injected such an unusual note into the somber tedium of the staircase that even she became aware of what an odd figure she cut there. She trembled as she made her way through the long series of huge austere rooms, in which the personages lurking in the tapestries seemed surprised by the billow of skirts that had invaded their gloomy solitude.

She found her father in a drawing room off the courtyard, where he often passed the time. He was reading a large book placed on a book-holder that had been fitted to the arm of his chair. Aunt Elisabeth sat in front of one of the windows knitting with long wooden needles, and in the silence of the room the click of those needles was the only sound to be heard.

Embarrassed, Renée sat down, unable to make a move without disturbing the severity of the high ceilings with the noise of rustling silk. The harsh white of her lace clashed with the dark background of tapestries and old furniture. M. Béraud Du Châtel placed his hands along the sides of the book-holder and stared at her. Aunt Elisabeth spoke of Christine’s impending marriage to the son of a very wealthy attorney. The young woman had gone shopping with one of the elderly servants, and the kindly aunt carried on all by herself in her placid voice without interrupting her knitting, chatting about household matters and darting smiling glances at Renée over her spectacles.

Renée, however, became increasingly anxious. All the silence of the house weighed on her shoulders, and she would have given a great deal to have the lace of her gown turn black. Her father’s stare embarrassed her to the point where she thought Worms must have been quite a fool to have designed a dress with such enormous flounces.

“How beautiful you look, my dear!” Aunt Elisabeth suddenly blurted out, as though she had not previously noticed her niece’s lace.

She stopped knitting and adjusted her glasses to get a better look. M. Béraud Du Châtel smiled wanly.

“It’s rather white,” he said. “A woman must feel quite embarrassed to be seen like that on the sidewalks.”

“But father, one doesn’t go out on foot!” Renée exclaimed, only to regret that ingenuous utterance the moment the words were out of her mouth.

The old man was on the point of responding, but he got up, stretched himself to his full height, and slowly walked away without looking at his daughter. Emotion had drained all the color from her face. Each time she exhorted herself to have courage and look for an opening to ask for money, she felt a twinge in her heart.

“We never see you anymore, father,” she murmured.

“Oh!” the aunt answered without giving her brother time to open his mouth, “Your father seldom goes out except on rare occasion to the Jardin des Plantes. And to make him do even that much I have to get angry! He pretends that he can’t find his way around Paris, which no longer suits him. . . . So go ahead and scold him if you like!”

“My husband would be so glad to see you at our Thursdays!” the young woman continued.

M. Béraud Du Châtel took a few steps in silence. Then, in a quiet voice, he said, “Thank your husband for me. He’s an energetic fellow, it seems, and for your sake I hope that he does business honestly. But we don’t share the same ideas, he and I, and I’m not comfortable in your beautiful house at Parc Monceau.”

Aunt Elisabeth seemed saddened by this reply.

“Men are so disagreeable with their politics!” she said cheerfully. “Do you want to know the truth? Your father is furious with you because you go to the Tuileries.”

But the old man shrugged, as if to say that there were far graver reasons for his discontent. He resumed his slow pace, lost in thought. Renée remained silent for a moment, the request for 50,000 francs hanging on the tip of her tongue. But then she lost heart more than ever, went over and kissed her father, and walked out.

Aunt Elisabeth insisted on accompanying her as far as the staircase. In passing through the series of rooms, she continued the conversation in the soft voice of the elderly woman she was. “You’re happy, my dear. It gives me great pleasure to see you beautiful and healthy, because if your marriage hadn’t worked out, I would have blamed myself, you know. . . . Your husband loves you, and you have everything you need, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Renée answered, straining to smile though she felt sick at heart.

Her aunt continued to hold on to her with one hand, the other hand resting on the banister.

“I have just one fear, you see, which is that you don’t become intoxicated with all your happiness. Be careful, and above all, don’t sell anything. . . . If some day you have a child, you’ll have a tidy fortune ready and waiting for it.”

When Renée was safely back in her carriage, she gave a sigh of relief. She had drops of cold sweat on her temples. As she wiped them off, she thought of the damp chill of the Béraud house. When the carriage reached the bright sunshine of the Quai Saint-Paul, she remembered the 50,000 francs, and all her pain returned, sharper than ever. People thought of her as such a bold woman, but what a coward she’d just been! Yet it was all about Maxime, and his freedom, and their happiness together! As she reproached herself bitterly, a new idea suddenly came to her, compounding her despair: she should have mentioned the 50,000 francs to Aunt Elisabeth on the staircase. What had she been thinking? The good woman might have lent her the money or at the very least helped her out. She was already leaning out to tell the coachman to return to the rue Saint-Louis-en-l’Ile when she had a vision of her father slowly making his way through the solemn gloom of the large drawing room. She would never be able to summon up the courage to return to that room right away. What would she say to explain this second visit? And in her heart of hearts, she realized that she also lacked the courage to discuss the matter with Aunt Elisabeth. She told the coachman to drive her to the rue du Faubourg-Poissonière instead.