Cousin Betty | Page 6

indignation. "But," she went on, "this will bring us to no issues; I did not ask you to come here to discuss the matter which led to your banishment in spite of the connection between our families----"
"I had fancied so."
"What! still?" cried she. "Do you not see, monsieur, by the entire ease and freedom with which I can speak of lovers and love, of everything least creditable to a woman, that I am perfectly secure in my own virtue? I fear nothing--not even to shut myself in alone with you. Is that the conduct of a weak woman? You know full well why I begged you to come."
"No, madame," replied Crevel, with an assumption of great coldness. He pursed up his lips, and again struck an attitude.
"Well, I will be brief, to shorten our common discomfort," said the Baroness, looking at Crevel.
Crevel made an ironical bow, in which a man who knew the race would have recognized the graces of a bagman.
"Our son married your daughter----"
"And if it were to do again----" said Crevel.
"It would not be done at all, I suspect," said the baroness hastily. "However, you have nothing to complain of. My son is not only one of the leading pleaders of Paris, but for the last year he has sat as Deputy, and his maiden speech was brilliant enough to lead us to suppose that ere long he will be in office. Victorin has twice been called upon to report on important measures; and he might even now, if he chose, be made Attorney-General in the Court of Appeal. So, if you mean to say that your son-in-law has no fortune----"
"Worse than that, madame, a son-in-law whom I am obliged to maintain," replied Crevel. "Of the five hundred thousand francs that formed my daughter's marriage portion, two hundred thousand have vanished--God knows how!--in paying the young gentleman's debts, in furnishing his house splendaciously--a house costing five hundred thousand francs, and bringing in scarcely fifteen thousand, since he occupies the larger part of it, while he owes two hundred and sixty thousand francs of the purchase-money. The rent he gets barely pays the interest on the debt. I have had to give my daughter twenty thousand francs this year to help her to make both ends meet. And then my son-in-law, who was making thirty thousand francs a year at the Assizes, I am told, is going to throw that up for the Chamber----"
"This, again, Monsieur Crevel, is beside the mark; we are wandering from the point. Still, to dispose of it finally, it may be said that if my son gets into office, if he has you made an officer of the Legion of Honor and councillor of the municipality of Paris, you, as a retired perfumer, will not have much to complain of----"
"Ah! there we are again, madame! Yes, I am a tradesman, a shopkeeper, a retail dealer in almond-paste, eau-de-Portugal, and hair-oil, and was only too much honored when my only daughter was married to the son of Monsieur le Baron Hulot d'Ervy--my daughter will be a Baroness! This is Regency, Louis XV., (Eil-de-boeuf--quite tip-top!--very good.) I love Celestine as a man loves his only child--so well indeed, that, to preserve her from having either brother or sister, I resigned myself to all the privations of a widower--in Paris, and in the prime of life, madame. But you must understand that, in spite of this extravagant affection for my daughter, I do not intend to reduce my fortune for the sake of your son, whose expenses are not wholly accounted for--in my eyes, as an old man of business."
"Monsieur, you may at this day see in the Ministry of Commerce Monsieur Popinot, formerly a druggist in the Rue des Lombards----"
"And a friend of mine, madame," said the ex-perfumer. "For I, Celestin Crevel, foreman once to old Cesar Birotteau, brought up the said Cesar Birotteau's stock; and he was Popinot's father-in-law. Why, that very Popinot was no more than a shopman in the establishment, and he is the first to remind me of it; for he is not proud, to do him justice, to men in a good position with an income of sixty thousand francs in the funds."
"Well then, monsieur, the notions you term 'Regency' are quite out of date at a time when a man is taken at his personal worth; and that is what you did when you married your daughter to my son."
"But you do not know how the marriage was brought about!" cried Crevel. "Oh, that cursed bachelor life! But for my misconduct, my Celestine might at this day be Vicomtesse Popinot!"
"Once more have done with recriminations over accomplished facts," said the Baroness anxiously. "Let us rather discuss the complaints I have found on your strange behavior. My daughter Hortense had