a hundred thousand crowns which he had at first offered
to the Baronne Hulot. So Valerie now had an income of thirty-two
thousand francs.

Crevel had just committed himself to a promise of far greater
magnitude than this gift of his surplus. In the paroxysm of rapture
which _his Duchess_ had given him from two to four--he gave this fine
title to Madame _de_ Marneffe to complete the illusion--for Valerie
had surpassed herself in the Rue du Dauphin that afternoon, he had
thought well to encourage her in her promised fidelity by giving her
the prospect of a certain little mansion, built in the Rue Barbette by
an imprudent contractor, who now wanted to sell it. Valerie could
already see herself in this delightful residence, with a fore-court
and a garden, and keeping a carriage!

"What respectable life can ever procure so much in so short a time, or
so easily?" said she to Lisbeth as she finished dressing. Lisbeth was
to dine with Valerie that evening, to tell Steinbock those things
about the lady which nobody can say about herself.

Madame Marneffe, radiant with satisfaction, came into the drawing-room
with modest grace, followed by Lisbeth dressed in black and yellow to
set her off.

"Good-evening, Claude," said she, giving her hand to the famous old
critic.

Claude Vignon, like many another, had become a political personage--a
word describing an ambitious man at the first stage of his career. The
_political personage_ of 1840 represents, in some degree, the _Abbe_
of the eighteenth century. No drawing-room circle is complete without
one.

"My dear, this is my cousin, Count Steinbock," said Lisbeth,
introducing Wenceslas, whom Valerie seemed to have overlooked.

"Oh yes, I recognized Monsieur le Comte," replied Valerie with a
gracious bow to the artist. "I often saw you in the Rue du Doyenne,
and I had the pleasure of being present at your wedding.--It would be
difficult, my dear," said she to Lisbeth, "to forget your adopted son
after once seeing him.--It is most kind of you, Monsieur Stidmann,"
she went on, "to have accepted my invitation at such short notice; but
necessity knows no law. I knew you to be the friend of both these
gentlemen. Nothing is more dreary, more sulky, than a dinner where all
the guests are strangers, so it was for their sake that I hailed you
in--but you will come another time for mine, I hope?--Say that you
will."

And for a few minutes she moved about the room with Stidmann, wholly