She was an active confidant and a very useful one. Two or three times a
week she would bring tickets for a box at the Opera or the Italiens, or
some one of the little theatres which enjoy a temporary vogue, and cause
all Paris to go from one end of Paris to the other for a season. In
Risler's eyes the tickets came from Madame Dobson; she had as many as she
chose to the theatres where operas were given. The poor wretch had no
suspicion that one of those boxes for an important "first night" had
often cost his partner ten or fifteen Louis.

In the evening, when his wife went away, always splendidly attired, he
would gaze admiringly at her, having no suspicion of the cost of her
costumes, certainly none of the man who paid for them, and would await
her return at his table by the fire, busy with his drawings, free from
care, and happy to be able to say to himself, "What a good time she is
having!"

On the floor below, at the Fromonts', the same comedy was being played,
but with a transposition of parts. There it was the young wife who sat
by the fire. Every evening, half an hour after Sidonie's departure, the
great gate swung open to give passage to the Fromont coupe conveying
Monsieur to his club. What would you have? Business has its demands.
All the great deals are arranged at the club, around the bouillotte
table, and a man must go there or suffer the penalty of seeing his
business fall off. Claire innocently believed it all. When her husband
had gone, she felt sad for a moment. She would have liked so much to
keep him with her or to go out leaning on his arm, to seek enjoyment with
him. But the sight of the child, cooing in front of the fire and kicking
her little pink feet while she was being undressed, speedily soothed the
mother. Then the eloquent word "business," the merchant's reason of
state, was always at hand to help her to resign herself.