of tender and hard-working intimacy for long enough had it not been for
circumstances which altered their material condition and destroyed its
delicate balance.

_Quivi trovammo Pluto il gran nemico...._

A sister of Madame Langeais died. She was the widow of a rich
manufacturer, and had no children. Her whole estate passed to the
Langeais. Jacqueline's fortune was more than doubled by it. When she
came in for her legacy, Olivier remembered what Christophe had said
about money, and remarked:

"We were quite well off without it: perhaps it will be a bad thing for
us."

Jacqueline laughed at him:

"Silly!" she said. "As though money could ever do any harm! We won't
make any change in our way of living just yet."

Their life remained the same to all appearances: so much the same that
after a certain time Jacqueline began to complain that they were not
well enough off: proof positive that there was a change somewhere. And,
in fact, although their income had been doubled or tripled, they spent
the whole of it without knowing how they did it. They began to wonder
how they had managed to live before. The money flew, and was swallowed
up by a thousand new expenses, which seemed at once to be habitual and
indispensable. Jacqueline had begun to patronize the great dressmakers:
she had dismissed the family sempstress who came by the day, a woman she
had known since she was a child. The days of the little fourpenny hats