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This audacious statement wrung a sigh of relief from the Baron; he took Madame Olivier's hand and squeezed it. "Thank you, my good Madame Olivier. But that is not all. Monsieur Crevel?" "Monsieur Crevel? What can you mean, sir? I do not understand," said Madame Olivier. "Listen to me. He is Madame Marneffe's lover " "Impossible, Monsieur le Baron; impossible," said she, clasping her hands.
"He was not dressed to go to his work!" Stidmann hurried off to Madame Marneffe's, struck by the truth of this conclusion, due to the second-sight of passion. At that moment Valerie was posed as Delilah. Stidmann, too sharp to ask for Madame Marneffe, walked straight in past the lodge, and ran quickly up to the second floor, arguing thus: "If I ask for Madame Marneffe, she will be out.
And Hulot, trusting to Madame Marneffe's heavenly friendship as much as to her love, intending, too, to end his days with her, had taken this confidential hint, and ceased to dye his whiskers and hair. After this touching declaration from his Valerie, handsome Hector made his appearance one morning perfectly white.
It is enough to compromise us all, and it certainly compromises that dreadful Marneffe's chances of promotion!" But he dismissed the minister's private secretary, and read as follows: "Oh, my dear friend, what a scene I have had to endure! Though you have made me happy for three years, I have paid dearly for it! He came in from the office in a rage that made me quake.
"I have no scruples," thought the Baron, standing transfixed for a few minutes. "What! That woman believes she can make use of his passion to be quit of that dolt, as she counted on Marneffe's decease! I shall be the instrument of divine wrath."
The Baron, assured of Count Steinbock's titles and position; the Baroness, pleased with his character and habits; Hortense, proud of her permitted love and of her suitor's fame, none of them hesitated to speak of the marriage; in short, the artist was in the seventh heaven, when an indiscretion on Madame Marneffe's part spoilt all. And this was how.
You may see in a drawing-room how one spends all her time looking down at her tucker or pulling up the shoulder-piece of her gown, how another makes play with the brightness of her eyes by glancing up at the cornice. Madame Marneffe's triumph, however, was not face to face like that of other women. She turned sharply round to return to Lisbeth at the tea-table.
After seeing his wife into a carriage with his daughter and his son-in-law, Hulot managed to escape unperceived, leaving his son and Celestine to do the honors of the house. He got into Madame Marneffe's carriage to see her home, but he found her silent and pensive, almost melancholy. "My happiness makes you very sad, Valerie," said he, putting his arm round her and drawing her to him.
The astute State Councillor had enlisted on his side the victim of Marneffe's promotion, a hard-working clerk, telling him that if he could fill Marneffe's place, he would certainly succeed to it; he had told him that the man was dying. So this clerk was scheming for Marneffe's advancement.
"But, my dear Hortense, you must learn something of life!" exclaimed Lisbeth, understanding the eloquence of her cousin's looks. "Otherwise, like your mother, you will find yourself abandoned in a deserted room, where you will weep like Calypso on the departure of Ulysses, and at an age when there is no hope of Telemachus " she added, repeating a jest of Madame Marneffe's.
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