“Oh, Monsieur Crevel, if you would indeed be my friend and give up your ridiculous notions----”
“Ridiculous? Madame, do not run yourself down. Look at yourself--I love you, and you will come to be mine. The day will come when I shall say to Hulot, ‘You took Josepha, I have taken your wife!’
“It is the old law of tit-for-tat! And I will persevere till I have attained my end, unless you should become extremely ugly.--I shall succeed; and I will tell you why,” he went on, resuming his attitude, and looking at Madame Hulot. “You will not meet with such an old man, or such a young lover,” he said after a pause, “because you love your daughter too well to hand her over to the manoeuvres of an old libertine, and because you--the Baronne Hulot, sister of the old Lieutenant-General who commanded the veteran Grenadiers of the Old Guard--will not condescend to take a man of spirit wherever you may find him; for he might be a mere craftsman, as many a millionaire of to-day was ten years ago, a working artisan, or the foreman of a factory.
“And then, when you see the girl, urged by her twenty years, capable of dishonoring you all, you will say to yourself, ‘It will be better that I should fall! If Monsieur Crevel will but keep my secret, I will earn my daughter’s portion--two hundred thousand francs for ten years’ attachment to that old gloveseller--old Crevel!’--I disgust you no doubt, and what I am saying is horribly immoral, you think? But if you happened to have been bitten by an overwhelming passion, you would find a thousand arguments in favor of yielding--as women do when they are in love.--Yes, and Hortense’s interests will suggest to your feelings such terms of surrendering your conscience----”
“What! Old Fischer? He is winding up his concerns, and that again is the Baron’s fault; his rake is dragged over every till within his reach.”
“Oh, madame, your husband has already made thin air of the old General’s savings. He spent them in furnishing his singer’s rooms.--Now, come; am I to go without a hope?”
“Good-bye, monsieur. A man easily gets over a passion for a woman of my age, and you will fall back on Christian principles. God takes care of the wretched----”
The Baroness rose to oblige the captain to retreat, and drove him back into the drawing-room.