On the first few occasions Madame Chanteau refused to take any money from the drawer without notifying Pauline. 'There are some payments to be made on Saturday, my dear,' she would say. 'Will you come with me upstairs, and settle what scrip we shall sell?' 'Oh! there's no occasion for that, aunt,' Pauline would reply. 'You can settle that yourself.' 'No, my dear, you know that I never do anything without consulting you. It is your money.' In time, however, Madame Chanteau grew less rigid in this respect. One evening Lazare told her of a debt which he had concealed from Pauline, five thousand francs spent on copper pipes which had not even been used. She had only just returned from a visit to the drawer with her niece, so she went upstairs again by herself, on seeing the despair her son was in, and took out the extra five thousand francs, on a solemn promise that he would repay them out of the first profits. But from that day her old strictness departed, and she began to take scrip out of the drawer without consulting Pauline. She found it a little unpleasant and humiliating, too, at her age, to be continually consulting a mere child, and she rebelled against doing so. The money would all be paid back to Pauline; and, even if it did belong to her, that was no reason why one should never be able to make the slightest move without obtaining her permission. So from this time she ceased to insist on Pauline accompanying her on her visits to the secrétaire. Pauline was really happier in consequence, for, in spite of her kind and generous heart, those constant withdrawals of money perturbed her. Her common-sense began to warn her of the probability of a catastrophe, and the feelings of prudence and economy which she had inherited from her mother were now roused in opposition to all the reckless expenditure. At first she was surprised at Madame Chanteau's silence, for she felt sure that the money was going the same way as before, with the one difference that she was not being consulted about it. After a little time, however, she felt that she preferred it to be so. It, at any rate, saved her the grief of seeing the bundle of papers grow smaller at each visit to the drawer. Between herself and her aunt there was but a quick exchange of glances at certain times; a steady anxious gaze on the girl's part, when she guessed some further abstraction, and a vacillating look from Madame Chanteau, who felt irritated that she should be obliged to turn away her head. Thus bitterness and dislike began to arise between them.