s married.

The dinner, four hours behind time, to which the husband, wife, and
child sat down, betrayed the financial straits in which the household
found itself, for the table is the surest thermometer for gauging the
income of a Parisian family. Vegetable soup made with the water haricot
beans had been boiled in, a piece of stewed veal and potatoes sodden
with water by way of gravy, a dish of haricot beans, and cheap cherries,
served and eaten in cracked plates and dishes, with the dull-looking and
dull-sounding forks of German silver--was this a banquet worthy of this
pretty young woman? The Baron would have wept could he have seen it. The
dingy decanters could not disguise the vile hue of wine bought by the
pint at the nearest wineshop. The table-napkins had seen a week's
use. In short, everything betrayed undignified penury, and the equal
indifference of the husband and wife to the decencies of home. The
most superficial observer on seeing them would have said that these two
beings had come to the stage when the necessity of living had prepared
them for any kind of dishonor that might bring luck to them. Valerie's
first words to her husband will explain the delay that had postponed the
dinner by the not disinterested devotion of the cook.

"Samanon will only take your bills at fifty per cent, and insists on a
lien on your salary as security."

So poverty, still unconfessed in the house of the superior official, and
hidden under a stipend of twenty-four thousand francs, irrespective of
presents, had reached its lowest stage in that of the clerk.

"You have caught on with the chief," said the man, looking at his wife.

"I rather think so," replied she, understanding the full meaning of his
slang expression.

"What is to become of us?" Marneffe went on. "The landlord will be down
on us to-morrow. And to think of your father dying without making a
will! On my honor, those men of the Empire all think themselves as
immortal as their Emperor."

"Poor father!" said she. "I was his only child, and he was very fond of
me. The Countess probably burned the will. How could he forget me when
he used to give us as much as three or four thousand-franc notes at
once, from time to time?"

"We owe four quarters' rent, fifteen hundred francs. Is the furniture
worth so much? _That is the question_, as Shakespeare says."

"Now, good-bye, ducky!" said Valerie, who had only eaten a few mouthfuls
of the veal, from which the maid