Madame Hulot raised her head, and looked uneasily at the ex-perfumer.

“Paris is a town whither every man of energy—­and they sprout like saplings on French soil—­comes to meet his kind; talent swarms here without hearth or home, and energy equal to anything, even to making a fortune.  Well, these youngsters—­your humble servant was such a one in his time, and how many he has known!  What had du Tillet or Popinot twenty years since?  They were both pottering round in Daddy Birotteau’s shop, with not a penny of capital but their determination to get on, which, in my opinion, is the best capital a man can have.  Money may be eaten through, but you don’t eat through your determination.  Why, what had I?  The will to get on, and plenty of pluck.  At this day du Tillet is a match for the greatest folks; little Popinot, the richest druggist of the Rue des Lombards, became a deputy, now he is in office.—­Well, one of these free lances, as we say on the stock market, of the pen, or of the brush, is the only man in Paris who would marry a penniless beauty, for they have courage enough for anything.  Monsieur Popinot married Mademoiselle Birotteau without asking for a farthing.  Those men are madmen, to be sure!  They trust in love as they trust in good luck and brains!—­Find a man of energy who will fall in love with your daughter, and he will marry without a thought of money.  You must confess that by way of an enemy I am not ungenerous, for this advice is against my own interests.”

“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——­”