But, hop, skip, and jump, and she is here.
You know your Moliere? Well, Baron, there is nothing imaginary in your
title."
Hulot, left without a shred of doubt, sat sunk in ominous silence.
Catastrophes lead intelligent and strong-minded men to be
philosophical. The Baron, morally, was at this moment like a man
trying to find his way by night through a forest. This gloomy
taciturnity and the change in that dejected countenance made Crevel
very uneasy, for he did not wish the death of his colleague.
"As I said, old fellow, we are now even; let us play for the odd. Will
you play off the tie by hook and by crook? Come!"
"Why," said Hulot, talking to himself--"why is it that out of ten
pretty women at least seven are false?"
But the Baron was too much upset to answer his own question. Beauty is
the greatest of human gifts for power. Every power that has no
counterpoise, no autocratic control, leads to abuses and folly.
Despotism is the madness of power; in women the despot is caprice.
"You have nothing to complain of, my good friend; you have a beautiful
wife, and she is virtuous."
"I deserve my fate," said Hulot. "I have undervalued my wife and made
her miserable, and she is an angel! Oh, my poor Adeline! you are
avenged! She suffers in solitude and silence, and she is worthy of my
love; I ought--for she is still charming, fair and girlish even--But
was there ever a woman known more base, more ignoble, more villainous
than this Valerie?"
"She is a good-for-nothing slut," said Crevel, "a hussy that deserves
whipping on the Place du Chatelet.
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