Part 40 (2/2)
The Baroness laid her finger on her daughter's lips, aggrieved by this complaint, the first blame she had ever uttered of a father so heroically screened by her mother's magnanimous silence.
”Now, good-bye, my children,” said Madame Hulot. ”The storm is over. But do not quarrel any more.”
When Wenceslas and his wife returned to their room after letting out the Baroness, Hortense said to her husband:
”Tell me all about last evening.”
And she watched his face all through the narrative, interrupting him by the questions that crowd on a wife's mind in such circ.u.mstances.
The story made Hortense reflect; she had a glimpse of the infernal dissipation which an artist must find in such vicious company.
”Be honest, my Wenceslas; Stidmann was there, Claude Vignon, Vernisset.--Who else? In short, it was good fun?”
”I, I was thinking of nothing but our ten thousand francs, and I was saying to myself, 'My Hortense will be freed from anxiety.'”
This catechism bored the Livonian excessively; he seized a gayer moment to say:
”And you, my dearest, what would you have done if your artist had proved guilty?”
”I,” said she, with an air of prompt decision, ”I should have taken up Stidmann--not that I love him, of course!”
”Hortense!” cried Steinbock, starting to his feet with a sudden and theatrical emphasis. ”You would not have had the chance--I would have killed you!”
Hortense threw herself into his arms, clasping him closely enough to stifle him, and covered him with kisses, saying:
”Ah, you do love me! I fear nothing!--But no more Marneffe. Never go plunging into such horrible bogs.”
”I swear to you, my dear Hortense, that I will go there no more, excepting to redeem my note of hand.”
She pouted at this, but only as a loving woman sulks to get something for it. Wenceslas, tired out with such a morning's work, went off to his studio to make a clay sketch of the _Samson and Delilah_, for which he had the drawings in his pocket.
Hortense, penitent for her little temper, and fancying that her husband was annoyed with her, went to the studio just as the sculptor had finished handling the clay with the impetuosity that spurs an artist when the mood is on him. On seeing his wife, Wenceslas hastily threw the wet wrapper over the group, and putting both arms round her, he said:
”We were not really angry, were we, my pretty puss?”
Hortense had caught sight of the group, had seen the linen thrown over it, and had said nothing; but as she was leaving, she took off the rag, looked at the model, and asked:
”What is that?”
”A group for which I had just had an idea.”
”And why did you hide it?”
”I did not mean you to see it till it was finished.”
”The woman is very pretty,” said Hortense.
And a thousand suspicions cropped up in her mind, as, in India, tall, rank plants spring up in a night-time.
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