Part 19 (2/2)
”A lady! What, a woman in society; the rascal, what luck he has! He is the only favorite!”
”A married woman, and quite the lady,” Lisbeth affirmed.
”Really and truly?” cried Crevel, opening wide eyes flas.h.i.+ng with envy, quite as much as at the magic words _quite the lady_.
”Yes, really,” said Lisbeth. ”Clever, a musician, three-and-twenty, a pretty, innocent face, a dazzling white skin, teeth like a puppy's, eyes like stars, a beautiful forehead--and tiny feet, I never saw the like, they are not wider than her stay-busk.”
”And ears?” asked Crevel, keenly alive to this catalogue of charms.
”Ears for a model,” she replied.
”And small hands?”
”I tell you, in few words, a gem of a woman--and high-minded, and modest, and refined! A beautiful soul, an angel--and with every distinction, for her father was a Marshal of France----”
”A Marshal of France!” shrieked Crevel, positively bounding with excitement. ”Good Heavens! by the Holy Piper! By all the joys in Paradise!--The rascal!--I beg your pardon, Cousin, I am going crazy!--I think I would give a hundred thousand francs----”
”I dare say you would, and, I tell you, she is a respectable woman--a woman of virtue. The Baron has forked out handsomely.”
”He has not a sou, I tell you.”
”There is a husband he has pushed----”
”Where did he push him?” asked Crevel, with a bitter laugh.
”He is promoted to be second in his office--this husband who will oblige, no doubt;--and his name is down for the Cross of the Legion of Honor.”
”The Government ought to be judicious and respect those who have the Cross by not flinging it broadcast,” said Crevel, with the look of an aggrieved politician. ”But what is there about the man--that old bulldog of a Baron?” he went on. ”It seems to me that I am quite a match for him,” and he struck an att.i.tude as he looked at himself in the gla.s.s.
”Heloise has told me many a time, at moments when a woman speaks the truth, that I was wonderful.”
”Oh,” said Lisbeth, ”women like big men; they are almost always good-natured; and if I had to decide between you and the Baron, I should choose you. Monsieur Hulot is amusing, handsome, and has a figure; but you, you are substantial, and then--you see--you look an even greater scamp than he does.”
”It is incredible how all women, even pious women, take to men who have that about them!” exclaimed Crevel, putting his arm round Lisbeth's waist, he was so jubilant.
”The difficulty does not lie there,” said Betty. ”You must see that a woman who is getting so many advantages will not be unfaithful to her patron for nothing; and it would cost you more than a hundred odd thousand francs, for our little friend can look forward to seeing her husband at the head of his office within two years' time.--It is poverty that is dragging the poor little angel into that pit.”
Crevel was striding up and down the drawing-room in a state of frenzy.
”He must be uncommonly fond of the woman?” he inquired after a pause, while his desires, thus goaded by Lisbeth, rose to a sort of madness.
”You may judge for yourself,” replied Lisbeth. ”I don't believe he has had _that_ of her,” said she, snapping her thumbnail against one of her enormous white teeth, ”and he has given her ten thousand francs' worth of presents already.”
”What a good joke it would be!” cried Crevel, ”if I got to the winning post first!”
”Good heavens! It is too bad of me to be telling you all this t.i.ttle-tattle,” said Lisbeth, with an air of compunction.
”No.--I mean to put your relations to the blush. To-morrow I shall invest in your name such a sum in five-per-cents as will give you six hundred francs a year; but then you must tell me everything--his Dulcinea's name and residence. To you I will make a clean breast of it.--I never have had a real lady for a mistress, and it is the height of my ambition. Mahomet's houris are nothing in comparison with what I fancy a woman of fas.h.i.+on must be. In short, it is my dream, my mania, and to such a point, that I declare to you the Baroness Hulot to me will never be fifty,” said he, unconsciously plagiarizing one of the greatest wits of the last century. ”I a.s.sure you, my good Lisbeth, I am prepared to sacrifice a hundred, two hundred--Hus.h.!.+ Here are the young people, I see them crossing the courtyard. I shall never have learned anything through you, I give you my word of honor; for I do not want you to lose the Baron's confidence, quite the contrary. He must be amazingly fond of this woman--that old boy.”
”He is crazy about her,” said Lisbeth. ”He could not find forty thousand francs to marry his daughter off, but he has got them somehow for his new pa.s.sion.”
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