"No.--I mean to put your relations to the blush. To-morrow I shall
invest in your name such a sum in five-per-cents as will give you six
hundred francs a year; but then you must tell me everything--his
Dulcinea's name and residence. To you I will make a clean breast of
it.--I never have had a real lady for a mistress, and it is the height
of my ambition. Mahomet's houris are nothing in comparison with what I
fancy a woman of fashion must be. In short, it is my dream, my mania,
and to such a point, that I declare to you the Baroness Hulot to me
will never be fifty," said he, unconsciously plagiarizing one of the
greatest wits of the last century. "I assure you, my good Lisbeth, I
am prepared to sacrifice a hundred, two hundred--Hush! Here are the
young people, I see them crossing the courtyard. I shall never have
learned anything through you, I give you my word of honor; for I do
not want you to lose the Baron's confidence, quite the contrary. He
must be amazingly fond of this woman--that old boy."
"He is crazy about her," said Lisbeth. "He could not find forty
thousand francs to marry his daughter off, but he has got them somehow
for his new passion."
"And do you think that she loves him?"
"At his age!" said the old maid.
"Oh, what an owl I am!" cried Crevel, "when I myself allowed Heloise
to keep her artist exactly as Henri IX. allowed Gabrielle her
Bellegrade. Alas! old age, old age!--Good-morning, Celestine. How do,
my jewel!--And the brat? Ah! here he comes; on my honor, he is
beginning to be like me!--Good-day, Hulot--quite well? We shall soon
be having another wedding in the family.
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