You can imagine the sensation this announcement
will create. I can see your friends and the frequenters of your
drawing-room meeting one another in the street, and saying: 'Ah,
well! what's this about poor d'Argeles?' 'Pshaw!--no doubt it's a
voluntary sale.' 'Not at all; she's really ruined. Everything is
mortgaged above its value.' 'Indeed, I'm very sorry to hear it.
She was a good creature.' 'Oh, excellent; a deal of amusement
could be found at her house,--only between you and me----' 'Well?'
'Well, she was no longer young.' 'That's true. However, I shall
attend the sale, and I think I shall bid.' And, in fact, your
acquaintances won't fail to repair to the Hotel Drouot, and maybe
your most intimate friends will yield to their generous impulses
sufficiently to offer twenty sous for one of the dainty trifles on
your etageres."
Overcome with shame, Madame d'Argeles hung her head. She had
never before so keenly felt the disgrace of her situation. She
had never so clearly realized what a deep abyss she had fallen
into. And this crushing humiliation came from whom? From the only
friend she possessed--from the man who was her only hope, Baron
Trigault.
And what made it all the more frightful was, that he did not seem
to be in the least degree conscious of the cruelty of his words.
Indeed, he continued, in a tone of bitter irony: "Of course, you
will have an exhibition before the sale, and you will see all the
dolls that hairdressers, milliners and fools call great ladies,
come running to the show.
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