was in
a state of such helpless dejection, that she allowed Crevel to kneel
at her feet, kissing her hands.

"Good God! what will become of us!" she went on, wiping away her
tears. "Can a mother sit still and see her child pine away before her
eyes? What is to be the fate of that splendid creature, as strong in
her pure life under her mother's care as she is by every gift of
nature? There are days when she wanders round the garden, out of
spirits without knowing why; I find her with tears in her eyes----"

"She is one-and-twenty," said Crevel.

"Must I place her in a convent?" asked the Baroness. "But in such
cases religion is impotent to subdue nature, and the most piously
trained girls lose their head!--Get up, pray, monsieur; do you not
understand that everything is final between us? that I look upon you
with horror? that you have crushed a mother's last hopes----"

"But if I were to restore them," asked he.

Madame Hulot looked at Crevel with a frenzied expression that really
touched him. But he drove pity back to the depths of his heart; she
had said, "I look upon you with horror."

Virtue is always a little too rigid; it overlooks the shades and
instincts by help of which we are able to tack when in a false
position.

"So handsome a girl as Mademoiselle Hortense does not find a husband
nowadays if she is penniless," Crevel remarked, resuming his
starchiest manner. "Your daughter is one of those beauties who rather
alarm intending husbands; like a thoroughbred horse, which is too
expensive to keep up to find a ready purchaser. If you go out walking
with such a woman on your arm, every one will turn to look at you, and
follow and covet his neighbor's wife. Such success is a source of much
uneasiness to men who do not want to be killing lovers; for, after
all, no man kills more than one. In the position in which you find
yourself there are just three ways of getting your daughter married:
Either by my help--and you will have none of it! That is one.--Or by
finding some old man of sixty, very rich, childless, and anxious to
have children; that is difficult, still such men are to be met with.
Many old men take up with a Josepha, a Jenny Cadine, why should not
one be found who is ready to make a fool of himself under legal
formalities? If it were not for Celestine and our two grandchildren, I
would marry Hortense myself. That is two.--The last way is the
easiest----"

Madame Hulot raised her head, and looked