Part 78

“You are too exclusively Hulot, Monsieur Hulot!” said he.

The Baron tried to pass him, Marneffe took a pistol out of his pocket and cocked it.

“Monsieur le Baron,” said he, “when a man is as vile as I am--for you think me very vile, don’t you?--he would be the meanest galley-slave if he did not get the full benefit of his betrayed honor.--You are for war; it will be hot work and no quarter. Come here no more, and do not attempt to get past me. I have given the police notice of my position with regard to you.”

And taking advantage of Hulot’s amazement, he pushed him out and shut the door.

“What a low scoundrel!” said Hulot to himself, as he went upstairs to Lisbeth. “I understand her letter now. Valerie and I will go away from Paris. Valerie is wholly mine for the remainder of my days; she will close my eyes.”

Lisbeth was out. Madame Olivier told the Baron that she had gone to his wife’s house, thinking that she would find him there.

“Poor thing! I should never have expected her to be so sharp as she was this morning,” thought Hulot, recalling Lisbeth’s behavior as he made his way from the Rue Vanneau to the Rue Plumet.

As he turned the corner of the Rue Vanneau and the Rue de Babylone, he looked back at the Eden whence Hymen had expelled him with the sword of the law. Valerie, at her window, was watching his departure; as he glanced up, she waved her handkerchief, but the rascally Marneffe hit his wife’s cap and dragged her violently away from the window. A tear rose to the great official’s eye.

“Oh! to be so well loved! To see a woman so ill used, and to be so nearly seventy years old!” thought he.

Lisbeth had come to give the family the good news. Adeline and Hortense had already heard that the Baron, not choosing to compromise himself in the eyes of the whole office by appointing Marneffe to the first class, would be turned from the door by the Hulot-hating husband. Adeline, very happy, had ordered a dinner that her Hector was to like better than any of Valerie’s; and Lisbeth, in her devotion, was helping Mariette to achieve this difficult result. Cousin Betty was the idol of the hour. Mother and daughter kissed her hands, and had told her with touching delight that the Marshal consented to have her as his housekeeper.

“And from that, my dear, there is but one step to becoming his wife!” said Adeline.

“In fact, he did not say no when Victorin mentioned it,” added the Countess.

The Baron was welcomed home with such charming proofs of affection, so pathetically overflowing with love, that he was fain to conceal his troubles.

Marshal Hulot came to dinner. After dinner, Hector did not go out. Victorin and his wife joined them, and they made up a rubber.

“It is a long time, Hector,” said the Marshal gravely, “since you gave us the treat of such an evening.”

This speech from the old soldier, who spoiled his brother though he thus implicitly blamed him, made a deep impression. It showed how wide and deep were the wounds in a heart where all the woes he had divined had found an echo. At eight o’clock the Baron insisted on seeing Lisbeth home, promising to return.

“Do you know, Lisbeth, he ill-treats her!” said he in the street. “Oh, I never loved her so well!”

“I never imagined that Valerie loved you so well,” replied Lisbeth. “She is frivolous and a coquette, she loves to have attentions paid her, and to have the comedy of love-making performed for her, as she says; but you are her only real attachment.”

“What message did she send me?”

“Why, this,” said Lisbeth. “She has, as you know, been on intimate terms with Crevel. You must owe her no grudge, for that, in fact, is what has raised her above utter poverty for the rest of her life; but she detests him, and matters are nearly at an end.--Well, she has kept the key of some rooms--”

“Rue du Dauphin!” cried the thrice-blest Baron. “If it were for that alone, I would overlook Crevel.--I have been there; I know.”

“Here, then, is the key,” said Lisbeth. “Have another made from it in the course of to-morrow--two if you can.”

“And then,” said Hulot eagerly.

“Well, I will dine at your house again to-morrow; you must give me back Valerie’s key, for old Crevel might ask her to return it to him, and you can meet her there the day after; then you can decide what your facts are to be. You will be quite safe, as there are two ways out. If by chance Crevel, who is Regence in his habits, as he is fond of saying, should come in by the side street, you could go out through the shop, or vice versa.

“You owe all this to me, you old villain; now what will you do for me?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Then you will not oppose my marrying your brother?”

“You! the Marechale Hulot, the Comtesse de Frozheim?” cried Hector, startled.