She put on her eye-glasses, and looked at this room which displayed the kind of luxury one finds in a large hotel. On the mantelshelf she saw some long hair-pins which certainly did not come from Madame Sidonie's meagre chignon. The paper of that part of the wall, against which the bed had formerly stood, was all torn, discoloured and dirtied by the mattresses. The agent had certainly tried to hide this sore with the backs of two arm chairs, but these backs were rather low, and Renée's glance remained fixed on this worn strip of paper. "You have something to say to me?" she asked at last. "Yes, it's quite a story," said Madame Sidonie, joining her hands and assuming the expression of a glutton who is about to relate what she has eaten at dinner. "Just fancy, Monsieur de Saffré is in love with the beautiful Madame Saccard. Yes, with yourself, my pretty one." Renée did not vouchsafe even a gesture of coquetry. "Indeed!" she remarked, "but you said he was so smitten with Madame Michelin." "Oh! that's finished, quite finished--I can prove it to you if you like. Don't you know then that little Michelin has pleased Baron Gouraud? It's incredible. Every one who knows the baron is amazed. And now she's on the way to obtaining the red ribbon for her husband! Ah, she's a woman of spirit. She isn't faint-hearted, she doesn't need any one to steer her boat." Madame Sidonie said this with an air of some little regret mingled with admiration. "But to return to Monsieur de Saffré--It would seem that he met you at an actresses' ball, muffled up in a domino, and he even accuses himself of having somewhat cavalierly offered you a supper. Is it true?" The young woman was quite surprised. "Perfectly true," murmured she; "but who could have told him?" "Wait a bit, he pretends that he recognised you later on, when you were no longer in the room, and that he remembered having seen you leave on Maxime's arm. Since then he has been madly in love. It has grown in his heart, you understand, been a sudden fancy. He came to see me to beg me to make you his apologies--" "Well, tell him that I forgive him," interrupted Renée negligently. And again assailed by all her worries, she continued: "Ah! my good Sidonie, I am awfully bothered. It is absolutely necessary that I should have fifty thousand francs to-morrow morning. I came to speak to you about the matter. You know some money-lenders, you told me." The agent, vexed by the abrupt manner in which her sister-in-law had interrupted her story, made her wait some time for an answer. "Yes, certainly; only, I advise you, first of all to try and obtain the money from a friend. If I were in your place I know very well what I should do. I should simply apply to Monsieur de Saffré." Renée smiled in a constrained manner. "But it would hardly be proper," she answered, "since you pretend that he is so much in love."