But I keep an eye on my daughter's interests, be easy."
"Oh, if I could but see my daughter married, and die!" cried the poor
woman, quite losing her head.
"Well, then, this is the way," said the ex-perfumer.
Madame Hulot looked at Crevel with a hopeful expression, which so
completely changed her countenance, that this alone ought to have
touched the man's feelings and have led him to abandon his monstrous
schemes.
"You will still be handsome ten years hence," Crevel went on, with his
arms folded; "be kind to me, and Mademoiselle Hulot will marry. Hulot
has given me the right, as I have explained to you, to put the matter
crudely, and he will not be angry. In three years I have saved the
interest on my capital, for my dissipations have been restricted. I
have three hundred thousand francs in the bank over and above my
invested fortune--they are yours----"
"Go," said Madame Hulot. "Go, monsieur, and never let me see you
again. But for the necessity in which you placed me to learn the
secret of your cowardly conduct with regard to the match I had planned
for Hortense--yes, cowardly!" she repeated, in answer to a gesture
from Crevel. "How can you load a poor girl, a pretty, innocent
creature, with such a weight of enmity? But for the necessity that
goaded me as a mother, you would never have spoken to me again, never
again have come within my doors. Thirty-two years of an honorable and
loyal life shall not be swept away by a blow from Monsieur Crevel----"
"The retired perfumer, successor to Cesar Birotteau at the _Queen of
the Roses_, Rue Saint-Honore," added Crevel, in mocking tones.
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