“Listen, Monsieur Crevel,” said the Baroness, too anxious to be able to laugh, “you are fifty—­ten years younger than Monsieur Hulot, I know; but at my age a woman’s follies ought to be justified by beauty, youth, fame, superior merit—­some one of the splendid qualities which can dazzle us to the point of making us forget all else—­even at our age.  Though you may have fifty thousand francs a year, your age counterbalances your fortune; thus you have nothing whatever of what a woman looks for——­”

“But love!” said the officer, rising and coming forward.  “Such love as——­”

“No, monsieur, such obstinacy!” said the Baroness, interrupting him to put an end to his absurdity.

“Yes, obstinacy,” said he, “and love; but something stronger still—­a claim——­”

“A claim!” cried Madame Hulot, rising sublime with scorn, defiance, and 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——­”