her so
far as to make her look at the two souls in purgatory. Crevel, playing
against Baron Hulot and Monsieur Coquet, had Marneffe for his
partner. The game was even, because Crevel and the Baron were equally
absent-minded, and made blunder after blunder. Thus, in one instant, the
old men both confessed the passion which Valerie had persuaded them to
keep secret for the past three years; but she too had failed to hide
the joy in her eyes at seeing the man who had first taught her heart
to beat, the object of her first love. The rights of such happy mortals
survive as long as the woman lives over whom they have acquired them.

With these three passions at her side--one supported by the insolence of
wealth, the second by the claims of possession, and the third by youth,
strength, fortune, and priority--Madame Marneffe preserved her coolness
and presence of mind, like General Bonaparte when, at the siege of
Mantua, he had to fight two armies, and at the same time maintain the
blockade.

Jealousy, distorting Hulot's face, made him look as terrible as the late
Marshal Montcornet leading a cavalry charge against a Russian square.
Being such a handsome man, he had never known any ground for jealousy,
any more than Murat knew what it was to be afraid. He had always felt
sure that he should triumph. His rebuff by Josepha, the first he
had ever met, he ascribed to her love of money; "he was conquered by
millions, and not by a changeling," he would say when speaking of the
Duc d'Herouville. And now, in one instant, the poison and delirium
that the mad passion sheds in a flood had rushed to his heart. He kept
turning from the whist-table towards the fireplace with an action _a la_
Mirabeau; and as he laid down his cards to cast a challenging glance
at the Brazilian and Valerie, the rest of the company felt the sort of
alarm mingled with curiosity that is caused by evident violence ready
to break out at any moment. The sham cousin stared at Hulot as he might
have looked at some big China mandarin.

This state of things could not last; it was bound to end in some
tremendous outbreak. Marneffe was as much afraid of Hulot as Crevel was
of Marneffe, for he was anxious not to die a mere clerk. Men marked for
death believe in life as galley-slaves believe in liberty; this man was
bent on being a first-class clerk at any cost. Thoroughly frightened by
the pantomime of the Baron and Crevel, he rose, said a few words in
his wife's ear, a