Rougon blushed, and for some time afterwards said nothing more on the subject of her duties and the proprieties. A persistent thrill of jealousy was all that now remained to him of his old passion. He watched her in the drawing-rooms which she frequented; and, if he had scented any intrigue, he would probably have warned her husband. As a matter of fact, when he was alone with the latter, he did try to put him on his guard, by speaking of his wife's extraordinary beauty. But Delestang always laughed with an air of fatuous confidence, and it was Rougon who really endured all the jealous torments of a betrayed husband.
His other counsels, practical ones, testified to his great affection for Clorinde. It was he who by degrees persuaded her to send her mother back to Italy. Countess Balbi, left alone in her little house in the Champs Élysées, had begun to lead a careless life which gave rise to much talk. Rougon took upon himself to settle the delicate question of an allowance. The house was next sold, and thus the young woman's past was wiped out. Then Rougon tried to cure her of her eccentricities, but in this matter he found himself confronted by utter _naïveté_ and resolute feminine obstinacy. Clorinde, now that she was married and wealthy, squandered money lavishly, though she was subject to sudden impulses of sordid avarice. She had kept her little maid, the dusky Antonia, who sucked oranges from morning till night; and between them they made an abominable mess of Clorinde's rooms in the big house in the Rue du Colisée. When Rougon went to see the young woman, he would find dirty plates on the chairs, and bottles of syrup strewn along the floor beside the wall. Beneath the furniture too he could espy an untidy accumulation of things which had been hastily thrust out of sight when he was announced.
And amidst the greasy hangings and soiled, dusty wood-work, Clorinde still indulged in the most extraordinary caprices. She would often receive her friends wrapt round with a rug, and lying on a couch, while complaining of the strangest disorders--of a dog, for instance, which was gnawing at her foot, or of a pin which she had accidentally swallowed, and the point of which must be trying to force its way out through her leg. At other times she would close the shutters at three o'clock in the afternoon, light all the candles, and begin to dance with Antonia, the one facing the other, and indulging in such paroxysms of laughter that when Rougon arrived the maid had to stand panting by the door for five minutes before she could leave the room. One day too Clorinde determined to remain invisible; she sewed her bed curtains together from top to bottom; and sat up on the bolster inside the cage she had thus formed, talking to Rougon for more than an hour, as calmly as though they had been sitting on either side of the fire. These extravagancies seemed quite natural to her. When Rougon chided her for them, she appeared quite surprised, and declared that she was doing nothing improper. It was in vain that he preached propriety to her, and promised to make her the most fascinating woman in Paris in a month's time, if she would let herself be guided by him; she only grew angry, and exclaimed: 'It's my nature to be like this; I always go on like this. What harm does it do anybody?' And sometimes she would smile and say: 'Oh, well, people love me all the same! Don't preach!'