"I think not, Madame," answered Elizabeth, who drew herself to her full height at this intrusion into her private life. "Yes, you will, you will. Your father will be delighted. He has such good judgment, your dear father, such great experience. Listen to me, my child, brilliant surroundings, the movement and glitter of a drawing-room are necessary for the duration of a passion. Men are so vain. Your husband has withdrawn from society. It is a foolish whim which will not last." "You know better whether it can last, Madame. But you must allow me to be the best judge of my own case," said Elizabeth. She was surprised at herself in giving utterance to this sentence of double meaning which concluded with a half threat. Mme. Passerat, disconcerted, hesitating at the allusion, was on her guard, and thought: "Still waters run deep." Mmes. de Vimelle and Bonnard-Basson, intimate because of their husbands' business association, drove together to the out-of-the-way Rue Haxo. Not so fashionable as Mme. Passerat, and therefore given to petty provincial competition, they noticed with silent satisfaction, the condition of the house and the number of storeys. They had hardly entered, when, while conversing, they made an inventory of the furniture, and unpleasantly estimated the value of Elizabeth's dress, which bore the hallmark of its Parisian origin, and was set off in so modest a frame, a contrast which they considered in very bad taste. After the usual exchange of compliments, Mme. de Vimelle smirked, while her friend tried to regain her breath, which she had lost in coming up the stairs. "We have heard about your new decision, Madame. It is quite right. You have defeated your adversary's plans." "What plan? What decision?" asked Elizabeth, puzzled. "Grenoble is a small town where one knows everything that is going on." "Everything," said Mme. Bonnard-Basson promptly, to emphasize that she had nothing to hide. "But what?" "Well, your husband changed from separation to divorce in order to marry the corespondent. You cut the grass from under his feet by giving up your case." "I had never thought of that." And Elizabeth, indignant, asked herself by what right they penetrated so impertinently into the sorrows and doubts of her soul. And she let them know it, not without firmness. Mme. de Vimelle took it upon herself to reply: "Heavens, Madame, a divorce is like a book or a crime--it belongs to the public." After the ladies had gone, Elizabeth, who had made enemies of them, compared them to Blanche Vernier who was far from brilliant, and who had not mentioned her equivocal position, but had so spontaneously offered her a sincere, loyal, active friendship. From actual experience, day by day, she saw externalities crumble, and the truth which demands a cruel apprenticeship to be understood, appear.