Cousin Betty Part 52

She was shaking with the nervous trembling which from that hour never left her. Her low, sweet tones were quite unlike the fevered accents of the woman who was ready for dishonor to save her family. The blood faded from her cheeks, her face was colorless, and her eyes were dry.

"And I played my part very badly, did I not?" she went on, looking at Crevel with the sweetness that martyrs must have shown in their eyes as they looked up at the Proconsul. "True love, the sacred love of a devoted woman, gives other pleasures, no doubt, than those that are bought in the open market!--But why so many words?" said she, suddenly bethinking herself, and advancing a step further in the way to perfection. "They sound like irony, but I am not ironical! Forgive me.

Besides, monsieur, I did not want to hurt any one but myself--"

The dignity of virtue and its holy flame had expelled the transient impurity of the woman who, splendid in her own peculiar beauty, looked taller in Crevel's eyes. Adeline had, at this moment, the majesty of the figures of Religion clinging to the Cross, as painted by the old Venetians; but she expressed, too, the immensity of her love and the grandeur of the Catholic Church, to which she flew like a wounded dove.

Crevel was dazzled, astounded.

"Madame, I am your slave, without conditions," said he, in an inspiration of generosity. "We will look into this matter--and--whatever you want--the impossible even--I will do. I will pledge my securities at the Bank, and in two hours you shall have the money."

"Good G.o.d! a miracle!" said poor Adeline, falling on her knees.

She prayed to Heaven with such fervor as touched Crevel deeply; Madame Hulot saw that he had tears in his eyes when, having ended her prayer, she rose to her feet.

"Be a friend to me, monsieur," said she. "Your heart is better than your words and conduct. G.o.d gave you your soul; your pa.s.sions and the world have given you your ideas. Oh, I will love you truly," she exclaimed, with an angelic tenderness in strange contrast with her attempts at coquettish trickery.

"But cease to tremble so," said Crevel.

"Am I trembling?" said the Baroness, unconscious of the infirmity that had so suddenly come upon her.

"Yes; why, look," said Crevel, taking Adeline by the arm and showing her that she was shaking with nervousness. "Come, madame," he added respectfully, "compose yourself; I am going to the Bank at once."

"And come back quickly! Remember," she added, betraying all her secrets, "that the first point is to prevent the suicide of our poor Uncle Fischer involved by my husband--for I trust you now, and I am telling you everything. Oh, if we should not be on time, I know my brother-in-law, the Marshal, and he has such a delicate soul, that he would die of it in a few days."

"I am off, then," said Crevel, kissing the Baroness' hand. "But what has that unhappy Hulot done?"

"He has swindled the Government."

"Good Heavens! I fly, madame; I understand, I admire you!"

Crevel bent one knee, kissed Madame Hulot's skirt, and vanished, saying, "You will see me soon."

Unluckily, on his way from the Rue Plumet to his own house, to fetch the securities, Crevel went along the Rue Vanneau, and he could not resist going in to see his little d.u.c.h.ess. His face still bore an agitated expression.

He went straight into Valerie's room, who was having her hair dressed.

She looked at Crevel in her gla.s.s, and, like every woman of that sort, was annoyed, before she knew anything about it, to see that he was moved by some strong feeling of which she was not the cause.

"What is the matter, my dear?" said she. "Is that a face to bring in to your little d.u.c.h.ess? I will not be your d.u.c.h.ess any more, monsieur, no more than I will be your 'little duck,' you old monster."

Crevel replied by a melancholy smile and a glance at the maid.

"Reine, child, that will do for to-day; I can finish my hair myself.

Give me my Chinese wrapper; my gentleman seems to me out of sorts."

Reine, whose face was pitted like a colander, and who seemed to have been made on purpose to wait on Valerie, smiled meaningly in reply, and brought the dressing-gown. Valerie took off her combing-wrapper; she was in her s.h.i.+ft, and she wriggled into the dressing-gown like a snake into a clump of gra.s.s.

"Madame is not at home?"

"What a question!" said Valerie.--"Come, tell me, my big puss, have _Rives Gauches_ gone down?"

"No."

"They have raised the price of the house?"

"No."

"You fancy that you are not the father of our little Crevel?"

"What nonsense!" replied he, sure of his paternity.

"On my honor, I give it up!" said Madame Marneffe. "If I am expected to extract my friend's woes as you pull the cork out of a bottle of Bordeaux, I let it alone.--Go away, you bore me."

"It is nothing," said Crevel. "I must find two hundred thousand francs in two hours."

"Oh, you can easily get them.--I have not spent the fifty thousand francs we got out of Hulot for that report, and I can ask Henri for fifty thousand--"

"Henri--it is always Henri!" exclaimed Crevel.

"And do you suppose, you great baby of a Machiavelli, that I will cast off Henri? Would France disarm her fleet?--Henri! why, he is a dagger in a sheath hanging on a nail. That boy serves as a weather-gla.s.s to show me if you love me--and you don't love me this morning."

"I don't love you, Valerie?" cried Crevel. "I love you as much as a million."

"That is not nearly enough!" cried she, jumping on to Crevel's knee, and throwing both arms round his neck as if it were a peg to hang on by. "I want to be loved as much as ten millions, as much as all the gold in the world, and more to that. Henri would never wait a minute before telling me all he had on his mind. What is it, my great pet? Have it out. Make a clean breast of it to your own little duck!"

And she swept her hair over Crevel's face, while she jestingly pulled his nose.

"Can a man with a nose like that," she went on, "have any secrets from his _Vava--lele--ririe_?"

And at the _Vava_ she tweaked his nose to the right; at _lele_ it went to the left; at _ririe_ she nipped it straight again.

"Well, I have just seen--" Crevel stopped and looked at Madame Marneffe.

"Valerie, my treasure, promise me on your honor--ours, you know?--not to repeat a single word of what I tell you."

"Of course, Mayor, we know all about that. One hand up--so--and one foot--so!" And she put herself in an att.i.tude which, to use Rabelais'

phrase, stripped Crevel bare from his brain to his heels, so quaint and delicious was the nudity revealed through the light film of lawn.

"I have just seen virtue in despair."

"Can despair possess virtue?" said she, nodding gravely and crossing her arms like Napoleon.

"It is poor Madame Hulot. She wants two hundred thousand francs, or else Marshal Hulot and old Johann Fischer will blow their brains out; and as you, my little d.u.c.h.ess, are partly at the bottom of the mischief, I am going to patch matters up. She is a saintly creature, I know her well; she will repay you every penny."

At the name of Hulot, at the words two hundred thousand francs, a gleam from Valerie's eyes flashed from between her long eyelids like the flame of a cannon through the smoke.

"What did the old thing do to move you to compa.s.sion? Did she show you--what?--her--her religion?"

"Do not make game of her, sweetheart; she is a very saintly, a very n.o.ble and pious woman, worthy of all respect."