"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