ing, and held in thrall by want of money, had led
the life of Tantalus. Thrown in--as he phrased it--with the most
elegant women in Paris, he let them out of the shop with servile
homage, while admiring their grace, their way of wearing the fashions,
and all the nameless charms of what is called breeding. To rise to the
level of one of these fairies of the drawing-room was a desire formed
in his youth, but buried in the depths of his heart. Thus to win the
favors of Madame Marneffe was to him not merely the realization of his
chimera, but, as has been shown, a point of pride, of vanity, of
self-satisfaction. His ambition grew with success; his brain was
turned with elation; and when the mind is captivated, the heart feels
more keenly, every gratification is doubled.

Also, it must be said that Madame Marneffe offered to Crevel a
refinement of pleasure of which he had no idea; neither Josepha nor
Heloise had loved him; and Madame Marneffe thought it necessary to
deceive him thoroughly, for this man, she saw, would prove an
inexhaustible till. The deceptions of a venal passion are more
delightful than the real thing. True love is mixed up with birdlike
squabbles, in which the disputants wound each other to the quick; but
a quarrel without animus is, on the contrary, a piece of flattery to
the dupe's conceit.

The rare interviews granted to Crevel kept his passion at white heat.
He was constantly blocked by Valerie's virtuous severity; she acted
remorse, and wondered what her father must be thinking of her in the
paradise of the brave. Again and again he had to contend with a sort
of coldness, which the cunning slut made him believe he had overcome
by seeming to surrender to the man's crazy passion; and then, as if
ashamed, she entrenched herself once more in her pride of
respectability and airs of virtue, just like an Englishwoman, neither
more nor less; and she always crushed her Crevel under the weight of
her dignity--for Crevel had, in the first instance, swallowed her
pretensions to virtue.

In short, Valerie had special veins of affections which made her
equally indispensable to Crevel and to the Baron. Before the world she
displayed the attractive combination of modest and pensive innocence,
of irreproachable propriety, with a bright humor enhanced by the
suppleness, the grace and softness of the Creole; but in a
_tete-a-tete_ she would outdo any courtesan; she was audacious, amusing,
and full of original invent