Du Hordel, on being apprised of the matter,
had hastened forward and had paid what was due in order to avoid a
frightful scandal. And he was so upset by the extraordinary muddle in
which he found his nephew's home, once all prosperity, that remorse came
upon him as if he were in some degree responsible for what had happened,
since he had egotistically kept away from his relatives for his own
peace's sake. But he was more particularly won over by his grandniece
Andree, now a delicious young girl well-nigh eighteen years of age, and
therefore marriageable. She alone sufficed to attract him to the house,
and he was greatly distressed by the dangerous state of abandonment in
which he found her.
Her father continued dragging out his worthless life away from home. Her
mother, Valentine, had just emerged from a frightful crisis, her final
rupture with Santerre, who had made up his mind to marry a very wealthy
old lady, which, after all, was the logical destiny of such a crafty
exploiter of women, one who behind his affectation of cultured pessimism
had the vilest and greediest of natures. Valentine, distracted by this
rupture, had now thrown herself into religion, and, like her husband,
disappeared from the house for whole days.
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