dine at home. You can very well dine twice a week with Victorin
and twice a week with Hortense. And, as I believe, I may succeed in
making matters up completely between Crevel and us; we can dine once a
week with him. These five dinners and our own at home will fill up the
week all but one day, supposing that we may occasionally be invited to
dine elsewhere."

"I shall save a great deal for you," said Adeline.

"Oh!" he cried, "you are the pearl of women!"

"My kind, divine Hector, I shall bless you with my latest breath," said
she, "for you have done well for my dear Hortense."

This was the beginning of the end of the beautiful Madame Hulot's home;
and, it may be added, of her being totally neglected, as Hulot had
solemnly promised Madame Marneffe.

Crevel, the important and burly, being invited as a matter of course
to the party given for the signing of the marriage-contract, behaved as
though the scene with which this drama opened had never taken place, as
though he had no grievance against the Baron. Celestin Crevel was quite
amiable; he was perhaps rather too much the ex-perfumer, but as a Major
he was beginning to acquire majestic dignity. He talked of dancing at
the wedding.

"Fair lady," said he politely to the Baroness, "people like us know how
to forget. Do not banish me from your home; honor me, pray, by gracing
my house with your presence now and then to meet your children. Be quite
easy; I will never say anything of what lies buried at the bottom of my
heart. I behaved, indeed, like an idiot, for I should lose too much by
cutting myself off from seeing you."

"Monsieur, an honest woman has no ears for such speeches as those you
refer to. If you keep your word, you need not doubt that it will give me
pleasure to see the end of a coolness which must always be painful in a
family."

"Well, you sulky old fellow," said Hulot, dragging Crevel out into the
garden, "you avoid me everywhere, even in my own house. Are two admirers
of the fair sex to quarrel for ever over a petticoat? Come; this is
really too plebeian!"

"I, monsieur, am not such a fine man as you are, and my small
attractions hinder me from repairing my losses so easily as you can----"

"Sarcastic!" said the Baron.

"Irony is allowable from the vanquished to the conquerer."

The conversation, begun in this strain, ended in a complete
reconciliation; still Crevel maintained his right to take his revenge.

Madame Marneffe particul