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