rose to a sort of madness.
"You may judge for yourself," replied Lisbeth. "I don't believe he has had that of her," said she, snapping her thumbnail against one of her enormous white teeth, "and he has given her ten thousand francs' worth of presents already."
"What a good joke it would be!" cried Crevel, "if I got to the winning post first!"
"Good heavens! It is too bad of me to be telling you all this tittle-tattle," said Lisbeth, with an air of compunction.
"No. – I mean to put your relations to the blush. To-morrow I shall invest in your name such a sum in five-per-cents as will give you six hundred francs a year; but then you must tell me everything – his Dulcinea's name and residence. To you I will make a clean breast of it. – I never have had a real lady for a mistress, and it is the height of my ambition. Mahomet's houris are nothing in comparison with what I fancy a woman of fashion must be. In short, it is my dream, my mania, and to such a point, that I declare to you the Baroness Hulot to me will never be fifty," said he, unconsciously plagiarizing one of the greatest wits of the last century. "I assure you, my good Lisbeth, I am prepared to sacrifice a hundred, two hundred – Hush! Here are the young people, I see them crossing the courtyard. I shall never have learned anything through you, I give you my word of honor; for I do not want you to lose the Baron's confidence, quite the contrary. He must be amazingly fond of this woman – that old boy."
"He is crazy about her," said Lisbeth. "He could not find forty thousand francs to marry his daughter off, but he has got them somehow for his new passion."
"And do you think that she loves him?"
"At his age!" said the old maid.
"Oh, what an owl I am!" cried Crevel, "when I myself allowed Heloise to keep her artist exactly as Henri IX. allowed Gabrielle her Bellegrade. Alas! old age, old age! – Good-morning, Celestine. How do, my jewel! – And the brat? Ah! here he comes; on my honor, he is beginning to be like me! – Good-day, Hulot – quite well? We shall soon be having another wedding in the family."
Celestine and her husband, as a hint to their father, glanced at the old maid, who audaciously asked, in reply to Crevel:
"Indeed – whose?"
Crevel put on an air of reserve which was meant to convey that he would make up for her indiscretions.
"That of Hortense," he replied; "but it is not yet quite settled. I have just come from the Lebas', and they were talking of Mademoiselle Popinot as a suitable match for their son, the young councillor, for he would like to get the presidency of a provincial court. – Now, come to dinner."
By seven o'clock Lisbeth had returned home in an omnibus, for she was eager to see Wenceslas, whose dupe she had been for three weeks, and to whom she was carrying a basket filled with fruit by the hands of Crevel himself, whose attentions were doubled towards his Cousin Betty.
She flew up to the attic at a pace that took her breath away, and found the artist finishing the ornamentation of a box to be presented to the adored Hortense. The framework of the lid represented hydrangeas – in French called Hortensias– among which little Loves were playing. The poor lover, to enable him to pay for the materials of the box, of which the panels were of malachite, had designed two candlesticks for Florent and Chanor, and sold them the copyright – two admirable pieces of work.
"You have been working too hard these last few days, my dear fellow," said Lisbeth, wiping the perspiration from his brow, and giving him a kiss. "Such laborious diligence is really dangerous in the month of August. Seriously, you may injure your health. Look, here are some peaches and plums from Monsieur Crevel. – Now, do not worry yourself so much; I have borrowed two thousand francs, and, short of some disaster, we can repay them when you sell your clock. At the same time, the lender seems to me suspicious, for he has just sent in this document."
She laid the writ under the model sketch of the statue of General Montcornet.
"For whom are you making this pretty thing?" said she, taking up the model sprays of hydrangea in red wax which Wenceslas had laid down while eating the fruit.
"For a jeweler."
"For what jeweler?"
"I do not know. Stidmann asked me to make something out of them, as he is very busy."
"But these," she said in a deep voice, "are Hortensias. How is it that you have never made anything in wax for me? Is it so difficult to design a pin, a little box – what not, as a keepsake?" and she shot a fearful glance at the artist, whose eyes were happily lowered. "And yet you say you love me?"
"Can you doubt it, mademoiselle?"
"That is indeed an ardent mademoiselle! – Why, you have been my only thought since I found you dying – just there. When I saved you, you vowed you were mine, I mean to hold you to that pledge; but I made a vow to myself! I said to myself, 'Since the boy says he is mine, I mean to make him rich and happy!' Well, and I can make your fortune."
"How?" said the hapless artist, at the height of joy, and too artless to dream of a snare.
"Why, thus," said she.
Lisbeth could not deprive herself of the savage pleasure of gazing at Wenceslas, who looked up at her with filial affection, the expression really of his love for Hortense, which deluded the old maid. Seeing in a man's eyes, for the first time in her life, the blazing torch of passion, she fancied it was for her that it was lighted.
"Monsieur Crevel will back us to the extent of a hundred thousand francs to start in business, if, as he says, you will marry me. He has queer ideas, has the worthy man. – Well, what do you say to it?" she added.
The artist, as pale as the dead, looked at his benefactress with a lustreless eye, which plainly spoke his thoughts. He stood stupefied and open-mouthed.
"I never before was so distinctly told that I am hideous," said she, with a bitter laugh.
"Mademoiselle," said Steinbock, "my benefactress can never be ugly in my eyes; I have the greatest affection for you. But I am not yet thirty, and – "
"I am forty-three," said Lisbeth. "My cousin Adeline is forty-eight, and men are still madly in love with her; but then she is handsome – she is!"
"Fifteen years between us, mademoiselle! How could we get on together! For both our sakes I think we should be wise to think it over. My gratitude shall be fully equal to your great kindness. – And your money shall be repaid in a few days."
"My money!" cried she. "You treat me as if I were nothing but an unfeeling usurer."
"Forgive me," said Wenceslas, "but you remind me of it so often. – Well, it is you who have made me; do not crush me."
"You mean to be rid of me, I can see," said she, shaking her head. "Who has endowed you with this strength of ingratitude – you who are a man of papier-mache? Have you ceased to trust me – your good genius? – me, when I have spent so many nights working for you – when I have given you every franc I have saved in my lifetime – when for four years I have shared my bread with you, the bread of a hard-worked woman, and given you all I had, to my very courage."
"Mademoiselle – no more, no more!" he cried, kneeling before her with uplifted hands. "Say not another word! In three days I will tell you, you shall know all. – Let me, let me be happy," and he kissed her hands. "I love – and I am loved."
"Well,
