Bibi-Lupin undertook investigations for the benefit of private persons.
This might have led to great social dangers. With the means at his
command, the man would have been formidable, an underlying fate--"
"But in my place?" said Hulot.
"Why, you ask my advice? You who sell it!" replied Monsieur Chapuzot.
"Come, come, my dear sir, you are making fun of me."
Hulot bowed to the functionary, and went away without seeing that
gentleman's almost imperceptible shrug as he rose to open the door.
"And he wants to be a statesman!" said Chapuzot to himself as he
returned to his reports.
Victorin went home, still full of perplexities which he could confide
to no one.
At dinner the Baroness joyfully announced to her children that within
a month their father might be sharing their comforts, and end his days
in peace among his family.
"Oh, I would gladly give my three thousand six hundred francs a year
to see the Baron here!" cried Lisbeth. "But, my dear Adeline, do not
dream beforehand of such happiness, I entreat you!"
"Lisbeth is right," said Celestine. "My dear mother, wait till the
end."
The Baroness, all feeling and all hope, related her visit to Josepha,
expressed her sense of the misery of such women in the midst of good
fortune, and mentioned Chardin the mattress-picker, the father of the
Oran storekeeper, thus showing that her hopes were not groundless.
By seven next morning Lisbeth had driven in a hackney coach to the
Quai de la Tournelle, and stopped the vehicle at the corner of the Rue
de Poissy.
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