Madame Hulot looked at Crevel with a frenzied expression that really
touched him. But he drove pity back to the depths of his heart; she
had said, "I look upon you with horror."
Virtue is always a little too rigid; it overlooks the shades and
instincts by help of which we are able to tack when in a false
position.
"So handsome a girl as Mademoiselle Hortense does not find a husband
nowadays if she is penniless," Crevel remarked, resuming his
starchiest manner. "Your daughter is one of those beauties who rather
alarm intending husbands; like a thoroughbred horse, which is too
expensive to keep up to find a ready purchaser. If you go out walking
with such a woman on your arm, every one will turn to look at you, and
follow and covet his neighbor's wife. Such success is a source of much
uneasiness to men who do not want to be killing lovers; for, after
all, no man kills more than one. In the position in which you find
yourself there are just three ways of getting your daughter married:
Either by my help--and you will have none of it! That is one.--Or by
finding some old man of sixty, very rich, childless, and anxious to
have children; that is difficult, still such men are to be met with.
Many old men take up with a Josepha, a Jenny Cadine, why should not
one be found who is ready to make a fool of himself under legal
formalities? If it were not for Celestine and our two grandchildren, I
would marry Hortense myself. That is two.
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