--What a woman she is! She upsets me like a fit of the
colic when she looks at me coldly. What grace! What wit! Never did
Josepha move me so. And what perfection when you come to know her!
--Ha, there is my man!"
He perceived in the gloom of the Rue de Babylone the tall, somewhat
stooping figure of Hulot, stealing along close to a boarding, and he
went straight up to him.
"Good-morning, Baron, for it is past midnight, my dear fellow. What
the devil are your doing here? You are airing yourself under a
pleasant drizzle. That is not wholesome at our time of life. Will you
let me give you a little piece of advice? Let each of us go home; for,
between you and me, you will not see the candle in the window."
The last words made the Baron suddenly aware that he was sixty-three,
and that his cloak was wet.
"Who on earth told you--?" he began.
"Valerie, of course, _our_ Valerie, who means henceforth to be _my_
Valerie. We are even now, Baron; we will play off the tie when you
please. You have nothing to complain of; you know, I always stipulated
for the right of taking my revenge; it took you three months to rob me
of Josepha; I took Valerie from you in--We will say no more about
that. Now I mean to have her all to myself. But we can be very good
friends, all the same."
"Crevel, no jesting," said Hulot, in a voice choked by rage. "It is a
matter of life and death."
"Bless me, is that how you take it!--Baron, do you not remember what
you said to me the day of Hortense's marriage: 'Can two old gaffers
like us quarrel over a petticoat? It is too low, too common.
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