"What!" he said to himself, "not even an income of five hundred francs to finish my studies! Ah! how I should like to send them packing." And absorbed as he was by these stern ideas, such few courteous words of his two friends as he deigned to take the trouble to understand, displeased him as devoid of sense, silly, feeble, in a word--feminine. As the result of speaking for the sake of speaking and of endeavouring to keep the conversation alive, it came about that Madame de Rênal mentioned that her husband had come from Verrières because he had made a bargain for the May straw with one of his farmers. (In this district it is the May straw with which the bed mattresses are filled). "My husband will not rejoin us," added Madame de Rênal; "he will occupy himself with finishing the re-stuffing of the house mattresses with the help of the gardener and his valet. He has put the May straw this morning in all the beds on the first storey; he is now at the second." Julien changed colour. He looked at Madame de Rênal in a singular way, and soon managed somehow to take her on one side, doubling his pace. Madame Derville allowed them to get ahead. "Save my life," said Julien to Madame de Rênal; "only you can do it, for you know that the valet hates me desperately. I must confess to you, madame, that I have a portrait. I have hidden it in the mattress of my bed." At these words Madame de Rênal in her turn became pale. "Only you, Madame, are able at this moment to go into my room, feel about without their noticing in the corner of the mattress; it is nearest the window. You will find a small, round box of black cardboard, very glossy." "Does it contain a portrait?" said Madame de Rênal, scarcely able to hold herself upright. Julien noticed her air of discouragement, and at once proceeded to exploit it. "I have a second favour to ask you, madame. I entreat you not to look at that portrait; it is my secret." "It is a secret," repeated Madame de Rênal in a faint voice. But though she had been brought up among people who are proud of their fortune and appreciative of nothing except money, love had already instilled generosity into her soul. Truly wounded as she was, it was with an air of the most simple devotion that Madame de Rênal asked Julien the questions necessary to enable her to fulfil her commission. "So" she said to him as she went away, "it is a little round box of black cardboard, very glossy." "Yes, Madame," answered Julien, with that hardness which danger gives to men. She ascended the second storey of the château as pale as though she had been going to her death. Her misery was completed by the sensation that she was on the verge of falling ill, but the necessity of doing Julien a service restored her strength. "I must have that box," she said to herself, as she doubled her pace.