Lisbeth never left Adeline's bedside; she sat up all night, and was
much admired by the two younger women.
"Well, my dear Madame de Saint-Esteve," said Victorin, showing the
dreadful old woman into his study and carefully shutting the doors,
"how are we getting on?"
"Ah, ha! my dear friend," said she, looking at Victorin with cold
irony. "So you have thought things over?"
"Have you done anything?"
"Will you pay fifty thousand francs?"
"Yes," replied Victorin, "for we must get on. Do you know that by one
single phrase that woman has endangered my mother's life and reason?
So, I say, get on."
"We have got on!" replied the old woman.
"Well?" cried Victorin, with a gulp.
"Well, you do not cry off the expenses?"
"On the contrary."
"They run up to twenty-three thousand francs already."
Victorin looked helplessly at the woman.
"Well, could we hoodwink you, you, one of the shining lights of the
law?" said she. "For that sum we have secured a maid's conscience and
a picture by Raphael.--It is not dear."
Hulot, still bewildered, sat with wide open eyes.
"Well, then," his visitor went on, "we have purchased the honesty of
Mademoiselle Reine Tousard, a damsel from whom Madame Marneffe has no
secrets--"
"I understand!"
"But if you shy, say so."
"I will play blindfold," he replied. "My mother has told me that that
couple deserve the worst torments--"
"The rack is out of date," said the old woman.
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