Part 34 (1/2)
She returned to the dining-room, followed by Crevel, who flattered himself that he had hit on a plan for keeping Valerie to himself; but there he found Baron Hulot, who, during this short colloquy, had also arrived with the same end in view. He, like Crevel, begged for a brief interview. Madame Marneffe again rose to go to the drawing-room, with a smile at the Brazilian that seemed to say, ”What fools they are! Cannot they see you?”
”Valerie,” said the official, ”my child, that cousin of yours is an American cousin--”
”Oh, that is enough!” she cried, interrupting the Baron. ”Marneffe never has been, and never will be, never can be my husband! The first, the only man I ever loved, has come back quite unexpectedly. It is no fault of mine! But look at Henri and look at yourself. Then ask yourself whether a woman, and a woman in love, can hesitate for a moment. My dear fellow, I am not a kept mistress. From this day forth I refuse to play the part of Susannah between the two Elders. If you really care for me, you and Crevel, you will be our friends; but all else is at an end, for I am six-and-twenty, and henceforth I mean to be a saint, an admirable and worthy wife--as yours is.”
”Is that what you have to say?” answered Hulot. ”Is this the way you receive me when I come like a Pope with my hands full of Indulgences?--Well, your husband will never be a first-cla.s.s clerk, nor be promoted in the Legion of Honor.”
”That remains to be seen,” said Madame Marneffe, with a meaning look at Hulot.
”Well, well, no temper,” said Hulot in despair. ”I will call this evening, and we will come to an understanding.”
”In Lisbeth's rooms then.”
”Very good--at Lisbeth's,” said the old dotard.
Hulot and Crevel went downstairs together without speaking a word till they were in the street; but outside on the sidewalk they looked at each other with a dreary laugh.
”We are a couple of old fools,” said Crevel.
”I have got rid of them,” said Madame Marneffe to Lisbeth, as she sat down once more. ”I never loved and I never shall love any man but my Jaguar,” she added, smiling at Henri Montes. ”Lisbeth, my dear, you don't know. Henri has forgiven me the infamy to which I was reduced by poverty.”
”It was my own fault,” said the Brazilian. ”I ought to have sent you a hundred thousand francs.”
”Poor boy!” said Valerie; ”I might have worked for my living, but my fingers were not made for that--ask Lisbeth.”
The Brazilian went away the happiest man in Paris.
At noon Valerie and Lisbeth were chatting in the splendid bedroom where this dangerous woman was giving to her dress those finis.h.i.+ng touches which a lady alone can give. The doors were bolted, the curtains drawn over them, and Valerie related in every detail all the events of the evening, the night, the morning.
”What do you think of it all, my darling?” she said to Lisbeth in conclusion. ”Which shall I be when the time comes--Madame Crevel, or Madame Montes?”
”Crevel will not last more than ten years, such a profligate as he is,”
replied Lisbeth. ”Montes is young. Crevel will leave you about thirty thousand francs a year. Let Montes wait; he will be happy enough as Benjamin. And so, by the time you are three-and-thirty, if you take care of your looks, you may marry your Brazilian and make a fine show with sixty thousand francs a year of your own--especially under the wing of a Marechale.”
”Yes, but Montes is a Brazilian; he will never make his mark,” observed Valerie.
”We live in the day of railways,” said Lisbeth, ”when foreigners rise to high positions in France.”
”We shall see,” replied Valerie, ”when Marneffe is dead. He has not much longer to suffer.”
”These attacks that return so often are a sort of physical remorse,”
said Lisbeth. ”Well, I am off to see Hortense.”
”Yes--go, my angel!” replied Valerie. ”And bring me my artist.--Three years, and I have not gained an inch of ground! It is a disgrace to both of us!--Wenceslas and Henri--these are my two pa.s.sions--one for love, the other for fancy.”
”You are lovely this morning,” said Lisbeth, putting her arm round Valerie's waist and kissing her forehead. ”I enjoy all your pleasures, your good fortune, your dresses--I never really lived till the day when we became sisters.”
”Wait a moment, my tiger-cat!” cried Valerie, laughing; ”your shawl is crooked. You cannot put a shawl on yet in spite of my lessons for three years--and you want to be Madame la Marechale Hulot!”
Shod in prunella boots, over gray silk stockings, in a gown of handsome corded silk, her hair in smooth bands under a very pretty black velvet bonnet, lined with yellow satin, Lisbeth made her way to the Rue Saint-Dominique by the Boulevard des Invalides, wondering whether sheer dejection would at last break down Hortense's brave spirit, and whether Sarmatian instability, taken at a moment when, with such a character, everything is possible, would be too much for Steinbock's constancy.