His triumphant paternity beamed in every
feature.
When Valerie was whispering a word of correction in his ear, he
snatched her hand, and put in:
"To-morrow, my Duchess, you shall have your own little house! The
papers are to be signed to-morrow."
"And the furniture?" said she, with a smile.
"I have a thousand shares in the Versailles _rive gauche_ railway. I
bought them at twenty-five, and they will go up to three hundred in
consequence of the amalgamation of the two lines, which is a secret
told to me. You shall have furniture fit for a queen. But then you
will be mine alone henceforth?"
"Yes, burly Maire," said this middle-class Madame de Merteuil. "But
behave yourself; respect the future Madame Crevel."
"My dear cousin," Lisbeth was saying to the Baron, "I shall go to see
Adeline early to-morrow; for, as you must see, I cannot, with any
decency, remain here. I will go and keep house for your brother the
Marshal."
"I am going home this evening," said Hulot.
"Very well, you will see me at breakfast to-morrow," said Lisbeth,
smiling.
She understood that her presence would be necessary at the family
scene that would take place on the morrow. And the very first thing in
the morning she went to see Victorin and to tell him that Hortense and
Wenceslas had parted.
When the Baron went home at half-past ten, Mariette and Louise, who
had had a hard day, were locking up the apartment. Hulot had not to
ring.
Very much put out at this compulsory virtue, the husband went straight
to his wife's room, and through the half-open door he saw her kneeling
before her Crucifix, absorbed in prayer, in one of those attitudes
which make the fortune of the painter or the sculptor who is so happy
to invent and then to express them.
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