Just then Jordan entered the passage and laughingly interrupted his wife. 'Two courses, a decanter of wine, and as much bread as one can eat,' said he. 'And then,' continued Marcelle, 'we shan't take a cab. It is so amusing to walk home at a late hour. As we are rich to-night, we shall spend a franc on an almond cake to take home with us. It will be a perfect _fête_, a reckless jollification.' She went off, delighted, on her husband's arm; and Madame Caroline, who had returned to the ante-room with them, now found sufficient strength to smile. 'I hope you will amuse yourselves,' she murmured in a trembling voice. Then she in her turn departed. She loved Saccard, and carried away with her a feeling of astonishment and grief--grief, as it were, for some shameful sore which she was unwilling to reveal. CHAPTER VII REVELATIONS Two months later, one grey, mild November afternoon, Madame Caroline went up to the room where her brother's plans were kept, immediately after breakfast, in order to set to work. Her brother, when at Constantinople, busy with his great scheme of the Oriental railways, had asked her to go through all the notes he had made at the time when they had travelled through Asia Minor together, and to draw up a kind of memoir, which would be an historical _résumé_ of the question. During two long weeks already she had been trying to give her whole mind to this task. It was so warm that day that she let the fire go out and opened the window, whence, before sitting down, she gazed for a moment at the tall bare trees of the Beauvilliers garden, which had a violet hue against the pale grey sky.