The carriage lamps were lighted, the hoods raised, and they drove quickly
homeward with the fresh air blowing in their faces. The dining-hall,
brilliantly illuminated, was filled with gayety and laughter.

Claire Fromont, embarrassed by the vulgarity of those about her, hardly
spoke at all. Sidonie was at her brightest. The drive had given
animation to her pale complexion and Parisian eyes. She knew how to
laugh, understood a little too much, perhaps, and seemed to the male
guests the only woman in the party. Her success completed Georges's
intoxication; but as his advances became more pronounced, she showed more
and more reserve. Thereupon he determined that she should be his wife.
He swore it to himself, with the exaggerated emphasis of weak characters,
who seem always to combat beforehand the difficulties to which they know
that they must yield some day.

It was the happiest moment of little Chebe's life. Even aside from any
ambitious project, her coquettish, false nature found a strange
fascination in this intrigue, carried on mysteriously amid banquets and
merry-makings.

No one about them suspected anything. Claire was at that healthy and
delightful period of youth when the mind, only partly open, clings to the
things it knows with blind confidence, in complete ignorance of treachery
and falsehood. M. Fromont thought of nothing but his business. His wife
polished her jewels with frenzied energy. Only old Gardinois and his
little, gimlet-like eyes were to be feared; but Sidonie entertained him,
and even if he had discovered anything, he was not the man to interfere
with her future.

Her hour of triumph was near, when a sudden, unforeseen disaster blasted