“Oh, monsieur!”

“Yes, madame, at our mistresses’,” Crevel repeated in a melodramatic tone, and leaving his position to wave his right hand.

“Well, and what then?” said the Baroness coolly, to Crevel’s great amazement.

Such mean seducers cannot understand a great soul.

“I, a widower five years since,” Crevel began, in the tone of a man who has a story to tell, “and not wishing to marry again for the sake of the daughter I adore, not choosing either to cultivate any such connection in my own establishment, though I had at the time a very pretty lady-accountant.  I set up, ‘on her own account,’ as they say, a little sempstress of fifteen—­really a miracle of beauty, with whom I fell desperately in love.  And in fact, madame, I asked an aunt of my own, my mother’s sister, whom I sent for from the country, to live with the sweet creature and keep an eye on her, that she might behave as well as might be in this rather—­what shall I say—­shady?—­no, delicate position.

“The child, whose talent for music was striking, had masters, she was educated—­I had to give her something to do.  Besides, I wished to be at once her father, her benefactor, and—­well, out with it—­her lover; to kill two birds with one stone, a good action and a sweetheart.  For five years I was very happy.  The girl had one of those voices that make the fortune of a theatre; I can only describe her by saying that she is a Duprez in petticoats.  It cost me two thousand francs a year only to cultivate her talent as a singer.  She made me music-mad; I took a box at the opera for her and for my daughter, and went there alternate evenings with Celestine or Josepha.”

“What, the famous singer?”

“Yes, madame,” said Crevel with pride, “the famous Josepha owes everything to me.—­At last, in 1834, when the child was twenty, believing that I had attached her to me for ever, and being very weak where she was concerned, I thought I would give her a little amusement, and I introduced her to a pretty little actress, Jenny Cadine, whose life had been somewhat like her own.  This actress also owed everything to a protector who had brought her up in leading-strings.  That protector was Baron Hulot.”

“I know that,” said the Baroness, in a calm voice without the least agitation.

“Bless me!” cried Crevel, more and more astounded.  “Well!  But do you know that your monster of a husband took Jenny Cadine in hand at the age of thirteen?”

“What then?” said the Baroness.

“As Jenny Cadine and Josepha were both aged twenty when they first met,” the ex-tradesman went on, “the Baron had been playing the part of Louis XV. to Mademoiselle de Romans ever since 1826, and you were twelve years younger then——­”

“I had my reasons, monsieur, for leaving Monsieur Hulot his liberty.”