"And would you have said as much, monsieur," asked Madame Hulot, looking Crevel steadily in the face, "if I had been false to my duty?"
"I should not be in a position to say it, dearest Adeline," cried this singular adorer, interrupting the Baroness, "for you would have found the amount in my pocket-book."
And adding action to word, the fat guardsman knelt down on one knee and kissed Madame Hulot's hand, seeing that his speech had filled her with speechless horror, which he took for hesitancy.
"What, buy my daughter's fortune at the cost of——? Rise, monsieur—or I ring the bell."
Crevel rose with great difficulty. This fact made him so furious that he again struck his favorite attitude. Most men have some habitual position by which they fancy that they show to the best advantage the good points bestowed on them by nature. This attitude in Crevel consisted in crossing his arms like Napoleon, his head showing three-quarters face, and his eyes fixed on the horizon, as the painter has shown the Emperor in his portrait.
"To be faithful," he began, with well-acted indignation, "so faithful to a liber——"
"To a husband who is worthy of such fidelity," Madame Hulot put in, to hinder Crevel from saying a word she did not choose to hear.
"Come, madame; you wrote to bid me here, you ask the reasons for my conduct, you drive me to extremities with your imperial airs, your scorn, and your contempt! Any one might think I was a Negro. But I repeat it, and you may believe me, I have a right to—to make love to you, for—— But no; I love you well enough to hold my tongue."
"You may speak, monsieur. In a few days I shall be eight-and-forty; I am no prude; I can hear whatever you can say."
"Then will you give me your word of honor as an honest woman—for you are, alas for me! an honest woman—never to mention my name or to say that it was I who betrayed the secret?"
"If that is the condition on which you speak, I will swear never to tell any one from whom I heard the horrors you propose to tell me, not even my husband."
"I should think not indeed, for only you and he are concerned."
Madame Hulot turned pale.
"Oh, if you still really love Hulot, it will distress you. Shall I say no more?"
"Speak, monsieur; for by your account you wish to justify in my eyes the extraordinary declarations you have chosen to make me, and your persistency in tormenting a woman of my age, whose only wish is to see her daughter married, and then—to die in peace——"
"You see; you are unhappy."
"I, monsieur?"
"Yes, beautiful, noble creature!" cried Crevel. "You have indeed been too wretched!"
"Monsieur, be silent and go—or speak to me as you ought."
"Do you know, madame, how Master Hulot and I first made acquaintance?—At our mistresses', madame."
"Oh, monsieur!"
"Yes, madame, at our mistresses'," Crevel repeated in a melodramatic tone, and leaving his position to wave his right hand.
"Well, and what then?" said the Baroness coolly, to Crevel's great amazement.
Such mean seducers cannot understand a great soul.
"I, a widower five years since," Crevel began, in the tone of a man who has a story to tell, "and not wishing to marry again for the sake of the daughter I adore, not choosing either to cultivate any such connection in my own establishment, though I had at the time a very pretty lady-accountant. I set up, 'on her own account,' as they say, a little sempstress of fifteen—really a miracle of beauty, with whom I fell desperately in love. And in fact, madame, I asked an aunt of my own, my mother's sister, whom I sent for from the country, to live with the sweet creature and keep an eye on her, that she might behave as well as might be in this rather—what shall I say—shady?—no, delicate position.
"The child, whose talent for music was striking, had masters, she was educated—I had to give her something to do. Besides, I wished to be at once her father, her benefactor, and—well, out with it—her lover; to kill two birds with one stone, a good action and a sweetheart. For five years I was very happy. The girl had one of those voices that make the fortune of a theatre; I can only describe her by saying that she is a Duprez in petticoats. It cost me two thousand francs a year only to cultivate her talent as a singer. She made me music-mad; I took a box at the opera for her and for my daughter, and went there alternate evenings with Celestine or Josepha."
"What, the famous singer?"
"Yes, madame," said Crevel with pride, "the famous Josepha owes everything to me.—At last, in 1834, when the child was twenty, believing that I had attached her to me for ever, and being very weak where she was concerned, I thought I would give her a little amusement, and I introduced her to a pretty little actress, Jenny Cadine, whose life had been somewhat like her own. This actress also owed everything to a protector who had brought her up in leading-strings. That protector was Baron Hulot."
"I know that," said the Baroness, in a calm voice without the least agitation.
"Bless me!" cried Crevel, more and more astounded. "Well! But do you know that your monster of a husband took Jenny Cadine in hand at the age of thirteen?"
"What then?" said the Baroness.
"As Jenny Cadine and Josepha were both aged twenty when they first met," the ex-tradesman went on, "the Baron had been playing the part of Louis XV. to Mademoiselle de Romans ever since 1826, and you were twelve years younger then——"
"I had my reasons, monsieur, for leaving Monsieur Hulot his liberty."
"That falsehood, madame, will surely be enough to wipe out every sin you have ever committed, and to open to you the gates of Paradise," replied Crevel, with a knowing air that brought the color to the Baroness' cheeks. "Sublime and adored woman, tell that to those who will believe it, but not to old Crevel, who has, I may tell you, feasted too often as one of four with your rascally husband not to know what your high merits are! Many a time has he blamed himself when half tipsy as he has expatiated on your perfections. Oh, I know you well!—A libertine might hesitate between you and a girl of twenty. I do not hesitate——"
"Monsieur!"
"Well, I say no more. But you must know, saintly and noble woman, that a husband under certain circumstances will tell things about his wife to his mistress that will mightily amuse her."
Tears of shame hanging to Madame Hulot's long lashes checked the National Guardsman. He stopped short, and forgot his attitude.
"To proceed," said he. "We became intimate, the Baron and I, through the two hussies. The Baron, like all bad lots, is very pleasant, a thoroughly jolly good fellow. Yes, he took my fancy, the old rascal. He could be so funny!—Well, enough of those reminiscences. We got to be like brothers. The scoundrel—quite Regency in his notions—tried indeed to deprave me altogether, preached Saint-Simonism as to women, and all sorts of lordly ideas; but, you see, I was fond enough of my girl to have married her, only I was afraid of having children.
"Then between two old daddies, such friends as—as we were, what more natural than that we should think of our children marrying each other?—Three months after his son had married my Celestine, Hulot—I don't know how I can utter the wretch's name! he has cheated us both, madame—well, the villain did me out of my little Josepha. The scoundrel knew that he was supplanted in the heart of Jenny Cadine by a young lawyer and by an artist—only two of them!—for the girl had more and more of a howling success, and he stole my sweet little girl, a perfect darling—but you must have seen her at the opera; he got her an engagement there. Your husband is not so well behaved as I am. I am ruled as straight as a sheet of music-paper. He had dropped a good deal of money on Jenny Cadine, who must have cost him near on thirty thousand francs a year. Well, I can only tell you that he is ruining himself outright for Josepha.
"Josepha,