Annette, left outside the conversation, realized that she was rejected. But she did not accept this at all. She knew the weakness of Lucile's character. Armed with her proud smile, seated in the midst of a group which, without appearing to see her, seemed to be wholly occupied in exchanging words that were as empty as they were lively, she glanced about with her calm eyes at everybody in the room. The glances of the others, meeting hers, turned aside to avoid her. One pair of eyes, however, did not have time to escape. They remained fixed upon her, full of annoyance and spite. Annette recognized the large doll-like face of Marie-Louise de Baudru, the daughter of a rich lawyer, the wife of a judge, whose family had always remained socially on cordial terms with the Rivières while cherishing towards them a deep-seated antipathy. Marie-Louise de Baudru incarnated in her stout person the most substantial qualities of the upper bourgeoisie: order, probity, the lack of curiosity, of charity, especially of intelligence, all the legal virtues, a firm verbal faith, empty as a butcher's shop of doubts and thought, and the religious worship of propriety, all the proprieties, her family, her property, her country, her Church, her moral code, her tradition and her negations. In short, a massive and compact ego like a block obstructing the sun. No room, near her, for the tub of Diogenes! Nothing was so repugnant to the Baudrus as independence of any kind, religious, moral, intellectual, political or social. A natural aversion! They confounded all its forms under the common taunt of "anarchism." This anarchism they had always suspected in the Rivières. And instinctively Marie-Louise, like the rest of her family, had distrusted Annette. She could not pardon the liberty which Annette had enjoyed in her education and her life as a young girl. There may have been a touch of envy in these unkind judgments. One sole consideration kept her from expressing them, the Rivières' fortune. Wealth commands esteem: it is one of the pillars--the firmest--of the social order. But this is on condition that it does not disturb the basis of everything, the legally established family. The supporters of society are on the watch there: hands off! Annette had struck at the cardinal principles. The watch-dog had awakened, though it held its peace, for it does not bark in society. But its look spoke for it, Annette perceived the bitterest scorn in that of Marie-Louise de Baudru. Her eyes rested calmly on those of her plump judge; and, addressing her with a little familiar bow, she forced her to respond. Marie-Louise, choking with anger at not being able to resist the injunction, bowed also, avenging herself by giving her coldest look. Annette had already turned indifferently away, and her eyes, which were making the tour of the drawing-room, returned to Lucile.