that idiot Crevel," she went on, "who wants to make a great
display and indulge his taste for inexpensive magnificence in honor of
the wedding, places me in difficulties from which I see no escape."

Could Valerie confess to this man, whom she adored, that since the
discomfiture of Baron Hulot, this Baron Henri Montes had inherited the
privilege of calling on her at all hours of the day or night; and
that, notwithstanding her cleverness, she was still puzzled to find a
cause of quarrel in which the Brazilian might seem to be solely in the
wrong? She knew the Baron's almost savage temper--not unlike Lisbeth's
--too well not to quake as she thought of this Othello of Rio de
Janeiro.

As the carriage drove up, Steinbock released Valerie, for his arm was
round her waist, and took up a newspaper, in which he was found
absorbed. Valerie was stitching with elaborate care at the slippers
she was working for Crevel.

"How they slander her!" whispered Lisbeth to Crevel, pointing to this
picture as they opened the door. "Look at her hair--not in the least
tumbled. To hear Victorin, you might have expected to find two
turtle-doves in a nest."

"My dear Lisbeth," cried Crevel, in his favorite position, "you see
that to turn Lucretia into Aspasia, you have only to inspire a
passion!"

"And have I not always told you," said Lisbeth, "that women like a
burly profligate like you?"

"And she would be most ungrateful, too," said Crevel; "for as to the
money I have spent here, Grindot and I alone can tell!"

And he waved a hand at the staircase.

In decorating this house, which Crevel regarded as his own, Grindot
had tried to compete with Cleretti, in whose hands the Duc
d'Herouville had placed Josepha's villa. But Crevel, incapable of
understanding art, had, like all sordid souls, wanted to spend a
certain sum fixed beforehand. Grindot, fettered by a contract, had
found it impossible to embody his architectural dream.

The difference between Josepha's house and that in the Rue Barbet was
just that between the individual stamp on things and commonness. The
objects you admired at Crevel's were to be bought in any shop. These
two types of luxury are divided by the river Million. A mirror, if
unique, is worth six thousand francs; a mirror designed by a
manufacturer who turns them out by the dozen costs five hundred. A
genuine lustre by Boulle will sell at a public auction for three
thousand francs; the same thing reproduced by cas