This is how Valerie announced this wholly personal event.
She was breakfasting with Lisbeth and her husband.
"I say, Marneffe, what would you say to being a second time a father?"
"You don't mean it--a baby?--Oh, let me kiss you!"
He rose and went round the table; his wife held up her head so that he
could just kiss her hair.
"If that is so," he went on, "I am head-clerk and officer of the
Legion of Honor at once. But you must understand, my dear, Stanislas
is not to be the sufferer, poor little man."
"Poor little man?" Lisbeth put in. "You have not set your eyes on him
these seven months. I am supposed to be his mother at the school; I am
the only person in the house who takes any trouble about him."
"A brat that costs us a hundred crowns a quarter!" said Valerie. "And
he, at any rate, is your own child, Marneffe. You ought to pay for his
schooling out of your salary.--The newcomer, far from reminding us of
butcher's bills, will rescue us from want."
"Valerie," replied Marneffe, assuming an attitude like Crevel, "I hope
that Monsieur le Baron Hulot will take proper charge of his son, and
not lay the burden on a poor clerk. I intend to keep him well up to
the mark. So take the necessary steps, madame! Get him to write you
letters in which he alludes to his satisfaction, for he is rather
backward in coming forward in regard to my appointment."
And Marneffe went away to the office, where his chief's precious
leniency allowed him to come in at about eleven o'clock.
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