"
She struck a tragic attitude, and spouted:
"'Tis Venus whose grasp never parts from her prey.
And there you are!" and she pirouetted on her toe.
Vice, Hulot found, could forgive him; vice smiled on him from the
midst of unbridled luxury. Here, as before a jury, the magnitude of a
crime was an extenuating circumstance. "And is your lady pretty at any
rate?" asked Josepha, trying as a preliminary act of charity, to
divert Hulot's thoughts, for his depression grieved her.
"On my word, almost as pretty as you are," said the Baron artfully.
"And monstrously droll? So I have been told. What does she do, I say?
Is she better fun than I am?"
"I don't want to talk about her," said Hulot.
"And I hear she has come round my Crevel, and little Steinbock, and a
gorgeous Brazilian?"
"Very likely."
"And that she has got a house as good as this, that Crevel has given
her. The baggage! She is my provost-marshal, and finishes off those I
have spoiled. I tell you why I am so curious to know what she is like,
old boy; I just caught sight of her in the Bois, in an open carriage
--but a long way off. She is a most accomplished harpy, Carabine says.
She is trying to eat up Crevel, but he only lets her nibble. Crevel is
a knowing hand, good-natured but hard-headed, who will always say Yes,
and then go his own way. He is vain and passionate; but his cash is
cold. You can never get anything out of such fellows beyond a thousand
to three thousand francs a month; they jib at any serious outlay, as a
donkey does at a running stream.
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