Part 64 (1/2)

”Why, you ask my advice? You who sell it!” replied Monsieur Chapuzot.

”Come, come, my dear sir, you are making fun of me.”

Hulot bowed to the functionary, and went away without seeing that gentleman's almost imperceptible shrug as he rose to open the door.

”And he wants to be a statesman!” said Chapuzot to himself as he returned to his reports.

Victorin went home, still full of perplexities which he could confide to no one.

At dinner the Baroness joyfully announced to her children that within a month their father might be sharing their comforts, and end his days in peace among his family.

”Oh, I would gladly give my three thousand six hundred francs a year to see the Baron here!” cried Lisbeth. ”But, my dear Adeline, do not dream beforehand of such happiness, I entreat you!”

”Lisbeth is right,” said Celestine. ”My dear mother, wait till the end.”

The Baroness, all feeling and all hope, related her visit to Josepha, expressed her sense of the misery of such women in the midst of good fortune, and mentioned Chardin the mattress-picker, the father of the Oran storekeeper, thus showing that her hopes were not groundless.

By seven next morning Lisbeth had driven in a hackney coach to the Quai de la Tournelle, and stopped the vehicle at the corner of the Rue de Poissy.

”Go to the Rue des Bernardins,” said she to the driver, ”No. 7, a house with an entry and no porter. Go up to the fourth floor, ring at the door to the left, on which you will see 'Mademoiselle Chardin--Lace and shawls mended.' She will answer the door. Ask for the Chevalier. She will say he is out. Say in reply, 'Yes, I know, but find him, for his _bonne_ is out on the quay in a coach, and wants to see him.'”

Twenty minutes later, an old man, who looked about eighty, with perfectly white hair, and a nose reddened by the cold, and a pale, wrinkled face like an old woman's, came shuffling slowly along in list slippers, a s.h.i.+ny alpaca overcoat hanging on his stooping shoulders, no ribbon at his b.u.t.tonhole, the sleeves of an under-vest showing below his coat-cuffs, and his s.h.i.+rt-front unpleasantly dingy. He approached timidly, looked at the coach, recognized Lisbeth, and came to the window.

”Why, my dear cousin, what a state you are in!”

”Elodie keeps everything for herself,” said Baron Hulot. ”Those Chardins are a blackguard crew.”

”Will you come home to us?”

”Oh, no, no!” cried the old man. ”I would rather go to America.”

”Adeline is on the scent.”

”Oh, if only some one would pay my debts!” said the Baron, with a suspicious look, ”for Samanon is after me.”

”We have not paid up the arrears yet; your son still owes a hundred thousand francs.”

”Poor boy!”

”And your pension will not be free before seven or eight months.--If you will wait a minute, I have two thousand francs here.”

The Baron held out his hand with fearful avidity.

”Give it me, Lisbeth, and may G.o.d reward you! Give it me; I know where to go.”

”But you will tell me, old wretch?”

”Yes, yes. Then I can wait eight months, for I have discovered a little angel, a good child, an innocent thing not old enough to be depraved.”

”Do not forget the police-court,” said Lisbeth, who flattered herself that she would some day see Hulot there.