onduct, my
Celestine might at this day be Vicomtesse Popinot!"

"Once more have done with recriminations over accomplished facts,"
said the Baroness anxiously. "Let us rather discuss the complaints I
have found on your strange behavior. My daughter Hortense had a chance
of marrying; the match depended entirely on you; I believed you felt
some sentiments of generosity; I thought you would do justice to a
woman who has never had a thought in her heart for any man but her
husband, that you would have understood how necessary it is for her
not to receive a man who may compromise her, and that for the honor of
the family with which you are allied you would have been eager to
promote Hortense's settlement with Monsieur le Conseiller Lebas.--And
it is you, monsieur, you have hindered the marriage."

"Madame," said the ex-perfumer, "I acted the part of an honest man. I
was asked whether the two hundred thousand francs to be settled on
Mademoiselle Hortense would be forthcoming. I replied exactly in these
words: 'I would not answer for it. My son-in-law, to whom the Hulots
had promised the same sum, was in debt; and I believe that if Monsieur
Hulot d'Ervy were to die to-morrow, his widow would have nothing to
live on.'--There, fair lady."

"And would you have said as much, monsieur," asked Madame Hulot,
looking Crevel steadily in the face, "if I had been false to my duty?"

"I should not be in a position to say it, dearest Adeline," cried this
singular adorer, interrupting the Baroness, "for you would have found
the amount in my pocket-book."

And adding action to word, the fat guardsman knelt down on one knee
and kissed Madame Hulot's hand, seeing that his speech had filled her
with speechless horror, which he took for hesitancy.

"What, buy my daughter's fortune at the cost of----? Rise, monsieur
--or I ring the bell."

Crevel rose with great difficulty. This fact made him so furious that
he again struck his favorite attitude. Most men have some habitual
position by which they fancy that they show to the best advantage the
good points bestowed on them by nature. This attitude in Crevel
consisted in crossing his arms like Napoleon, his head showing
three-quarters face, and his eyes fixed on the horizon, as the painter
has shown the Emperor in his portrait.

"To be faithful," he began, with well-acted indignation, "so faithful
to a liber----"

"To a husband who is worthy of such fidelity," Madame Hulot put in, to
hin