In all other respects never did a man, to such a degree, become so utterly indifferent to his wife and children. His house was for him but a mere hotel, where he slept, and took his evening meal. He never thought of questioning his wife as to the use of her time, and what she did in his absence. Provided she did not ask him for money, and was there when he came home, he was satisfied.
Many women, at Mme. Favoral's age, might have made a strange use of that insulting indifference and of that absolute freedom.
If she did avail herself of it, it was solely to follow one of those inspirations which can only spring in a mother's heart.
The increase in the budget of the household was relatively large, but so nicely calculated, that she had not one cent more that she could call her own.
With the most intense sorrow, she thought that her children might have to endure the humiliating privations which had made her own life wretched. They were too young yet to suffer from the paternal parsimony; but they would grow; their desires would develop; and it would be impossible for her to grant them the most innocent satisfactions.
Whilst turning over and over in her mind this distressing thought, she remembered a friend of her mother's, who kept, in the Rue St.
Denis, a large establishment for the sale of hosiery and woollen goods. There, perhaps, lay the solution of the problem. She called to see the worthy woman, and, without even needing to confess the whole truth to her, she obtained sundry pieces of work, ill paid as a matter of course, but which, by dint of close application, might be made to yield from eight to twelve francs a week.
From this time she never lost a minute, concealing her work as if it were an evil act.
She knew her husband well enough to feel certain that he would break out, and swear that he spent money enough to enable his wife to live without being reduced to making a work woman of herself.
But what joy, the day when she hid way down at the bottom of a drawer the first twenty-franc-piece she had earned, a beautiful gold-piece, which belonged to her without contest, and which she might spend as she pleased, without having to render any account to any one!
And with what pride, from week to week, she saw her little treasure swell, despite the drafts she made upon it, sometimes to buy a toy for Maxence, sometimes to add a few ribbons or trinkets to Gilberte's toilet!
This was the happiest time of her life, a halt in that painful journey through which she had been dragging herself for so many years. Between her two children, the hours flew light and rapid as so many seconds. If all the hopes of the young girl and of the woman had withered before they had blossomed, the mother's joys, at least should not fail her. Because, whilst the present sufficed to her modest ambition, the future had ceased to cause her any uneasiness.
No reference had ever been made, between herself and her husband, to that famous dinner-party: he never spoke to her of the Mutual Credit Society; but now and then he allowed some words or exclamations to escape, which she carefully recorded, and which betrayed a prosperous state of affairs.
"That Thaller is a tough fellow!" he would exclaim, "and he has the most infernal luck!"
And at other times, "Two or three more operations like the one we have just successfully wound up, and we can shut up shop!"
From all this, what could she conclude, if not that he was marching with rapid strides towards that fortune, the object of all his ambition?
Already in the neighborhood he had that reputation to be very rich, which is the beginning of riches itself. He was admired for keeping his house with such rigid economy; for a man is always esteemed who has money, and does not spend it.
"He is not the man ever to squander what he has," the neighbors repeated.
The persons whom he received on Saturdays believed him more than comfortably off. When M. Desclavettes and M. Chapelain had complained to their hearts' contents, the one of the shop, the other of his office, they never failed to add, "You laugh at us, because you are engaged in large operations, where people make as much money as they like."
They seemed to hold his financial capacities in high estimation.
They consulted him, and followed his advice.
M. Desormeaux was wont to say, "Oh! he knows what he is about."
And Mme. Favoral tried to persuade herself, that, in this respect at least, her husband was a remarkable man. She attributed his silence and his distractions to the grave cares that filled his mind.
In the same manner that he had once announced to her that they had enough to live on, she expected him, some fine morning, to tell her that he was a millionaire.
