Poor Madame Sidonie had experienced a deception. While she was promoting the marriage she had hoped in a degree to espouse Renée herself, make her a customer and derive a number of little profits by her. She judged women at a glance like connoisseurs judge horses. And so, after allowing the couple a month to settle themselves, her consternation was great when, on perceiving Madame de Lauwerens enthroned in the centre of the drawing-room, she realised that she came too late. Madame de Lauwerens, a handsome woman of twenty-six, occupied herself with launching newcomers into the swing. She belonged to a very old family and was married to a man of the upper financial world, who had the fault of refusing to settle tailors' and milliners' bills. His wife, a very intelligent person, coined money and kept herself. She held men in horror, she said; but she supplied all her female friends with them; there was always a full stock to choose from in the flat which she occupied in the Rue de Provence, over her husband's offices. Little collations took place there; and one met one another in an unforeseen charming manner. There was no harm in a girl going to see her dear Madame de Lauwerens, and if chance brought men there who were at all events very respectful and belonged to the best society--why so much the worse. The lady of the house was charming in her long lace wrappers. A visitor would very often have chosen her in preference to her collection of blondes and brunettes. But report asserted that she was altogether well conducted. The whole secret of the affair lay in that. She still held her high situation in society, had all the men for her friends, retained her pride as a virtuous woman, and experienced a secret joy in lowering the others and deriving a profit by their fall. When Madame Sidonie had enlightened herself as to the mechanism of the new invention she was sorely distressed. It was the classical school, the woman in an old black dress, carrying love letters at the bottom of her basket, set in front of the modern school, the lady of high degree, who sells her friends in her boudoir while sipping a cup of tea. The modern school triumphed. Madame de Lauwerens glanced coldly at the shabby dress of Madame Sidonie in whom she scented a rival; and it was from her hand that Renée received her first worry, the young Duke de Rozan, whom the beautiful financier found it difficult to dispose of. It was only later on that the classical school won the day, when Madame Sidonie lent her lodging to her sister-in-law so that she might gratify her fancy for the stranger of the Quai Saint-Paul. She remained her confidante.