"Ah, you think," she continued, with the insistence of a woman who can say, I was right after all, "ah, you think it is enough to be in love, and to go into the country and lead a dreamy, pastoral life. No, my friend, no. By the side of that ideal life, there is a material life, and the purest resolutions are held to earth by threads which seem slight enough, but which are of iron, not easily to be broken. If Marguerite has not been unfaithful to you twenty times, it is because she has an exceptional nature. It is not my fault for not advising her to, for I couldn't bear to see the poor girl stripping herself of everything. She wouldn't;she replied that she loved you, and she wouldn't be unfaithful to you for anything in the world. All that is very pretty, very poetical, but one can't pay one's creditors in that coin, and now she can't free herself from debt, unless she can raise thirty thousand francs.""All right, I will provide that amount."
"You will borrow it?"
"Good heavens! Why, yes!"
"A fine thing that will be to do; you will fall out with your father, cripple your resources, and one doesn't find thirty thousand francs from one day to another. Believe me, my dear Armand, I know women better than you do; do not commit this folly; you will be sorry for it one day. Be reasonable. I don't advise you to leave Marguerite, but live with her as you did at the beginning. Let her find the means to get out of this difficulty. The duke will come back in a little while. The Comte de N., if she would take him, he told me yesterday even, would pay all her debts, and give her four or five thousand francs a month. He has two hundred thousand a year. It would be a position for her, while you will certainly be obliged to leave her. Don't wait till you are ruined, especially as the Comte de N. is a fool, and nothing would prevent your still being Marguerite's lover. She would cry a little at the beginning, but she would come to accustom herself to it, and you would thank me one day for what you had done. Imagine that Marguerite is married, and deceive the husband; that is all. I have already told you all this once, only at that time it was merely advice, and now it is almost a necessity."What Prudence said was cruelly true.
"This is how it is," she went on, putting away the papers she had just shown me; "women like Marguerite always foresee that some one will love them, never that they will love; otherwise they would put aside money, and at thirty they could afford the luxury of having a lover for nothing. If I had only known once what Iknow now! In short, say nothing to Marguerite, and bring her back to Paris. You have lived with her alone for four or five months;that is quite enough. Shut your eyes now; that is all that any one asks of you. At the end of a fortnight she will take the Comte de N., and she will save up during the winter, and next summer you will begin over again. That is how things are done, my dear fellow!"And Prudence appeared to be enchanted with her advice, which Irefused indignantly.
Not only my love and my dignity would not let me act thus, but Iwas certain that, feeling as she did now, Marguerite would die rather than accept another lover.
"Enough joking," I said to Prudence; "tell me exactly how much Marguerite is in need of.""I have told you: thirty thousand francs.""And when does she require this sum?"
"Before the end of two months."
"She shall have it."
Prudence shrugged her shoulders.
"I will give it to you," I continued, "but you must swear to me that you will not tell Marguerite that I have given it to you.""Don't be afraid."
"And if she sends you anything else to sell or pawn, let me know.""There is no danger. She has nothing left."I went straight to my own house to see if there were any letters from my father. There were four.
