tisan, or the foreman of a
factory.

"And then, when you see the girl, urged by her twenty years, capable
of dishonoring you all, you will say to yourself, 'It will be better
that I should fall! If Monsieur Crevel will but keep my secret, I will
earn my daughter's portion--two hundred thousand francs for ten years'
attachment to that old gloveseller--old Crevel!'--I disgust you no
doubt, and what I am saying is horribly immoral, you think? But if you
happened to have been bitten by an overwhelming passion, you would
find a thousand arguments in favor of yielding--as women do when they
are in love.--Yes, and Hortense's interests will suggest to your
feelings such terms of surrendering your conscience----"

"Hortense has still an uncle."

"What! Old Fischer? He is winding up his concerns, and that again is
the Baron's fault; his rake is dragged over every till within his
reach."

"Comte Hulot----"

"Oh, madame, your husband has already made thin air of the old
General's savings. He spent them in furnishing his singer's rooms.
--Now, come; am I to go without a hope?"

"Good-bye, monsieur. A man easily gets over a passion for a woman of
my age, and you will fall back on Christian principles. God takes care
of the wretched----"

The Baroness rose to oblige the captain to retreat, and drove him back
into the drawing-room.

"Ought the beautiful Madame Hulot to be living amid such squalor?"
said he, and he pointed to an old lamp, a chandelier bereft of its
gilding, the threadbare carpet, the very rags of wealth which made the
large room, with its red, white, and gold, look like a corpse of
Imperial festivities.

"Monsieur, virtue shines on it all. I have no wish to owe a handsome
abode to having made of the beauty you are pleased to ascribe to me a
_man-trap_ and _a money-box for five-franc pieces_!"

The captain bit his lips as he recognized the words he had used to
vilify Josepha's avarice.

"And for whom are you so magnanimous?" said he. By this time the
baroness had got her rejected admirer as far as the door.--"For a
libertine!" said he, with a lofty grimace of virtue and superior
wealth.

"If you are right, my constancy has some merit, monsieur. That is
all."

After bowing to the officer as a woman bows to dismiss an importune
visitor, she turned away too quickly to see him once more fold his
arms. She unlocked the doors she had closed, and did not see the
threatening gesture which was Crevel's parting