h excessive joy; she was incredulous of such
a gift.

"You are doing more for me in a breath than my rich relations have
done in thirty years!" she exclaimed. "They have never even asked
themselves whether I had any furniture at all. On his first visit, a
few weeks ago, the Baron made a rich man's face on seeing how poor I
was.--Thank you, my dear; and I will give you your money's worth, you
will see how by and by."

Valerie went out on the landing with _her_ Cousin Betty, and the two
women embraced.

"Pouh! How she stinks of hard work!" said the pretty little woman to
herself when she was alone. "I shall not embrace you often, my dear
cousin! At the same time, I must look sharp. She must be skilfully
managed, for she can be of use, and help me to make my fortune."

Like the true Creole of Paris, Madame Marneffe abhorred trouble; she
had the calm indifference of a cat, which never jumps or runs but when
urged by necessity. To her, life must be all pleasure; and the
pleasure without difficulties. She loved flowers, provided they were
brought to her. She could not imagine going to the play but to a good
box, at her own command, and in a carriage to take her there. Valerie
inherited these courtesan tastes from her mother, on whom General
Montcornet had lavished luxury when he was in Paris, and who for
twenty years had seen all the world at her feet; who had been wasteful
and prodigal, squandering her all in the luxurious living of which the
programme has been lost since the fall of Napoleon.

The grandees of the Empire were a match in their follies for the great
nobles of the last century. Under the Restoration the nobility cannot
forget that it has been beaten and robbed, and so, with two or three
exceptions, it has become thrifty, prudent, and stay-at-home, in
short, bourgeois and penurious. Since then, 1830 has crowned the work
of 1793. In France, henceforth, there will be great names, but no
great houses, unless there should be political changes which we can
hardly foresee. Everything takes the stamp of individuality. The
wisest invest in annuities. Family pride is destroyed.

The bitter pressure of poverty which had stung Valerie to the quick on
the day when, to use Marneffe's expression, she had "caught on" with
Hulot, had brought the young woman to the conclusion that she would
make a fortune by means of her good looks. So, for some days, she had
been feeling the need of having a friend about her to take