"Trouble your head no further about what
you have sold; make something else to sell. You have spent two hundred
francs in money, to say nothing of your time and your labor, on that
devil of a _Samson_. Your clock will cost you more than two thousand
francs to execute. I tell you what, if you will listen to me, you will
finish the two little boys crowning the little girl with cornflowers;
that would just suit the Parisians.--I will go round to Monsieur Graff
the tailor before going to Monsieur Crevel.--Go up now and leave me to
dress."
Next day the Baron, perfectly crazy about Madame Marneffe, went to see
Cousin Betty, who was considerably amazed on opening the door to see
who her visitor was, for he had never called on her before. She at
once said to herself, "Can it be that Hortense wants my lover?"--for
she had heard the evening before, at Monsieur Crevel's, that the
marriage with the Councillor of the Supreme Court was broken off.
"What, Cousin! you here? This is the first time you have ever been to
see me, and it is certainly not for love of my fine eyes that you have
come now."
"Fine eyes is the truth," said the Baron; "you have as fine eyes as I
have ever seen----"
"Come, what are you here for? I really am ashamed to receive you in
such a kennel."
The outer room of the two inhabited by Lisbeth served her as
sitting-room, dining-room, kitchen, and workroom. The furniture was such
as beseemed a well-to-do artisan--walnut-wood chairs with straw seats, a
small walnut-wood dining table, a work table, some colored prints in
black wooden frames, short muslin curtains to the windows, the floor
well polished and shining with cleanliness, not a speck of dust
anywhere, but all cold and dingy, like a picture by Terburg in every
particular, even to the gray tone given by a wall paper once blue and
now faded to gray.
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