Indeed, he seemed to
have profited by the terrible lesson, for he no longer coined lies, no
longer invented pressing business journeys as a pretext for dissipation.
He even set to work once more, and busied himself about the factory,
coming down every morning as in his younger days. And in Blaise he found
an active and devoted lieutenant, on whom he each day cast more and more
of the heavier work. Intimates were most struck, however, by the manner
in which Beauchene and his wife drew together again. Constance was most
attentive to her husband; Beauchene no longer left her, and they seemed
to agree well together, leading a very retired life in their quiet house,
where only relatives were now received.
Constance, on the morrow of Maurice's sudden death, was like one who has
just lost a limb. It seemed to her that she was no longer whole; she felt
ashamed of being, as it were, disfigured. Mingled, too, with her loving
sorrow for Maurice there was humiliation at the thought that she was no
longer a mother, that she no longer had any heir-apparent to her kingdom
beside her. To think that she had been so stubbornly determined to have
but one son, one child, in order that he might become the sole master of
the family fortune, the all-powerful monarch of the future.
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