"
And adding in a whisper: "This is your mother, young girl," he
pushed the astonished Marguerite into the room, closed the door,
and returned to Madame de Fondege.
Paler than her white muslin wrapper, the Baroness Trigault sprang
from her chair. This was the woman who, while her husband was
braving death to win fortune for her, had been dazzled by the
Count de Chalusse's wealth, and who, later in life, when she was
the richest of the rich, had sunk into the very depths of
degradation--had stooped, indeed, to a Coralth! The baroness had
once been marvellously beautiful, and even now, many murmurs of
admiration greeted her when she dashed through the Champs Elysees
in her magnificent equipage, attired in one of those eccentric
costumes which she alone dared to wear. She was a type of the
wife created by the customs of fashionable society; the woman who
feels elated when her name appears in the newspapers and in the
chronicles of Parisian "high life"; who has no thought of her
deserted fireside, but is ever tormented by a terrible thirst for
bustle and excitement; whose head is empty, and whose heart is
dry--the woman who only exists for the world; and who is devoured
by unappeasable covetousness, and who, at times, envies an
actress's liberty, and the notoriety of the leaders of the demi-
monde; the woman who is always in quest of fresh excitement, and
fails to find it; the woman who is blase, and prematurely old in
mind and body, and who yet still clings despairingly to her
fleeting youth.
Pages:
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444