“Oh, if I could but see my daughter married, and die!” cried the poor woman, quite losing her head.

“Well, then, this is the way,” said the ex-perfumer.

Madame Hulot looked at Crevel with a hopeful expression, which so completely changed her countenance, that this alone ought to have touched the man’s feelings and have led him to abandon his monstrous schemes.

“You will still be handsome ten years hence,” Crevel went on, with his arms folded; “be kind to me, and Mademoiselle Hulot will marry.  Hulot has given me the right, as I have explained to you, to put the matter crudely, and he will not be angry.  In three years I have saved the interest on my capital, for my dissipations have been restricted.  I have three hundred thousand francs in the bank over and above my invested fortune—­they are yours——­”

“Go,” said Madame Hulot.  “Go, monsieur, and never let me see you again.  But for the necessity in which you placed me to learn the secret of your cowardly conduct with regard to the match I had planned for Hortense—­yes, cowardly!” she repeated, in answer to a gesture from Crevel.  “How can you load a poor girl, a pretty, innocent creature, with such a weight of enmity?  But for the necessity that goaded me as a mother, you would never have spoken to me again, never again have come within my doors.  Thirty-two years of an honorable and loyal life shall not be swept away by a blow from Monsieur Crevel——­”

“The retired perfumer, successor to Cesar Birotteau at the Queen of the Roses, Rue Saint-Honore,” added Crevel, in mocking tones.  “Deputy-mayor, captain in the National Guard, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor—­exactly what my predecessor was!”

“Monsieur,” said the Baroness, “if, after twenty years of constancy, Monsieur Hulot is tired of his wife, that is nobody’s concern but mine.  As you see, he has kept his infidelity a mystery, for I did not know that he had succeeded you in the affections of Mademoiselle Josepha——­”

“Oh, it has cost him a pretty penny, madame.  His singing-bird has cost him more than a hundred thousand francs in these two years.  Ah, ha! you have not seen the end of it!”

“Have done with all this, Monsieur Crevel.  I will not, for your sake, forego the happiness a mother knows who can embrace her children without a single pang of remorse in her heart, who sees herself respected and loved by her family; and I will give up my soul to God unspotted——­”

“Amen!” exclaimed Crevel, with the diabolical rage that embitters the face of these pretenders when they fail for the second time in such an attempt.  “You do not yet know the latter end of poverty—­shame, disgrace.—­I have tried to warn you; I would have saved you, you and your daughter.  Well, you must study the modern parable of the Prodigal Father from A to Z. Your tears and your pride move me deeply,” said Crevel, seating himself, “for it is frightful to see the woman one loves weeping.  All I can promise you, dear Adeline, is to do nothing against your interests or your husband’s.  Only never send to me for information.  That is all.”