"
"Good-night, Crevel," said Marneffe. "I hope you will not stay long
with Valerie. Yes! I am jealous--a little late in the day, but it has
me hard and fast. I shall come back to see if you are gone."
"We have a little business to discuss, but I shall not stay long,"
said Crevel.
"Speak low.--What is it?" said Valerie, raising her voice, and looking
at him with a mingled expression of haughtiness and scorn.
Crevel, as he met this arrogant stare, though he was doing Valerie
important services, and had hoped to plume himself on the fact, was at
once reduced to submission.
"That Brazilian----" he began, but, overpowered by Valerie's fixed
look of contempt, he broke off.
"What of him?" said she.
"That cousin--"
"Is no cousin of mine," said she. "He is my cousin to the world and to
Monsieur Marneffe. And if he were my lover, it would be no concern of
yours. A tradesman who pays a woman to be revenged on another man, is,
in my opinion, beneath the man who pays her for love of her. You did
not care for me; all you saw in me was Monsieur Hulot's mistress. You
bought me as a man buys a pistol to kill his adversary. I wanted
bread--I accepted the bargain."
"But you have not carried it out," said Crevel, the tradesman once
more.
"You want Baron Hulot to be told that you have robbed him of his
mistress, to pay him out for having robbed you of Josepha? Nothing can
more clearly prove your baseness. You say you love a woman, you treat
her like a duchess, and then you want to degrade her? Well, my good
fellow, and you are right.
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