"natural father," Marshal Montcornet, and left in trust.

With an eye to the future, Valerie had added religious to social
hypocrisy. Punctual at the Sunday services, she enjoyed all the honors
due to the pious. She carried the bag for the offertory, she was a
member of a charitable association, presented bread for the sacrament,
and did some good among the poor, all at Hector's expense. Thus
everything about the house was extremely seemly. And a great many
persons maintained that her friendship with the Baron was entirely
innocent, supporting the view by the gentleman's mature age, and
ascribing to him a Platonic liking for Madame Marneffe's pleasant wit,
charming manners, and conversation--such a liking as that of the late
lamented Louis XVIII. for a well-turned note.

The Baron always withdrew with the other company at about midnight, and
came back a quarter of an hour later.

The secret of this secrecy was as follows. The lodge-keepers of the
house were a Monsieur and Madame Olivier, who, under the Baron's
patronage, had been promoted from their humble and not very lucrative
post in the Rue du Doyenne to the highly-paid and handsome one in
the Rue Vanneau. Now, Madame Olivier, formerly a needlewoman in the
household of Charles X., who had fallen in the world with the legitimate
branch, had three children. The eldest, an under-clerk in a notary's
office, was object of his parents' adoration. This Benjamin, for six
years in danger of being drawn for the army, was on the point of being
interrupted in his legal career, when Madame Marneffe contrived to have
him declared exempt for one of those little malformations which the
Examining Board can always discern when requested in a whisper by some
power in the ministry. So Olivier, formerly a huntsman to the King, and
his wife would have crucified the Lord again for the Baron or for Madame
Marneffe.

What could the world have to say? It knew nothing of the former episode
of the Brazilian, Monsieur Montes de Montejanos--it could say nothing.
Besides, the world is very indulgent to the mistress of a house where
amusement is to be found.

And then to all her charms Valerie added the highly-prized advantage
of being an occult power. Claude Vignon, now secretary to Marshal the
Prince de Wissembourg, and dreaming of promotion to the Council of State
as a Master of Appeals, was constantly seen in her rooms, to which came
also some Deputies--good fellows and gamblers. Madame M