The rare interviews granted to Crevel kept his passion at white heat.
He was constantly blocked by Valerie's virtuous severity; she acted
remorse, and wondered what her father must be thinking of her in the
paradise of the brave. Again and again he had to contend with a sort
of coldness, which the cunning slut made him believe he had overcome
by seeming to surrender to the man's crazy passion; and then, as if
ashamed, she entrenched herself once more in her pride of
respectability and airs of virtue, just like an Englishwoman, neither
more nor less; and she always crushed her Crevel under the weight of
her dignity--for Crevel had, in the first instance, swallowed her
pretensions to virtue.
In short, Valerie had special veins of affections which made her
equally indispensable to Crevel and to the Baron. Before the world she
displayed the attractive combination of modest and pensive innocence,
of irreproachable propriety, with a bright humor enhanced by the
suppleness, the grace and softness of the Creole; but in a
_tete-a-tete_ she would outdo any courtesan; she was audacious, amusing,
and full of original inventiveness. Such a contrast is irresistible to a
man of the Crevel type; he is flattered by believing himself sole
author of the comedy, thinking it is performed for his benefit alone,
and he laughs at the exquisite hypocrisy while admiring the hypocrite.
Valerie had taken entire possession of Baron Hulot; she had persuaded
him to grow old by one of those subtle touches of flattery which
reveal the diabolical wit of women like her.
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