wning a little girl, and he promised to secure for the sculptor a
studio attached to the Government marble-quarries, situated, as all the
world knows, at Le Gros-Caillou.

This was a success, such success as is won in Paris, that is to say,
stupendous success, that crushes those whose shoulders and loins are not
strong enough to bear it--as, be it said, not unfrequently is the case.
Count Wenceslas Steinbock was written about in all the newspapers and
reviews without his having the least suspicion of it, any more than
had Mademoiselle Fischer. Every day, as soon as Lisbeth had gone out to
dinner, Wenceslas went to the Baroness' and spent an hour or two there,
excepting on the evenings when Lisbeth dined with the Hulots.

This state of things lasted for several days.

The Baron, assured of Count Steinbock's titles and position; the
Baroness, pleased with his character and habits; Hortense, proud of her
permitted love and of her suitor's fame, none of them hesitated to speak
of the marriage; in short, the artist was in the seventh heaven, when an
indiscretion on Madame Marneffe's part spoilt all.

And this was how.

Lisbeth, whom the Baron wished to see intimate with Madame Marneffe,
that she might keep an eye on the couple, had already dined with
Valerie; and she, on her part, anxious to have an ear in the Hulot
house, made much of the old maid. It occurred to Valerie to invite
Mademoiselle Fischer to a house-warming in the new apartments she was
about to move into. Lisbeth, glad to have found another house to
dine in, and bewitched by Madame Marneffe, had taken a great fancy to
Valerie. Of all the persons she had made acquaintance with, no one had
taken so much pains to please her. In fact, Madame Marneffe, full of
attentions for Mademoiselle Fischer, found herself in the position
towards Lisbeth that Lisbeth held towards the Baroness, Monsieur Rivet,
Crevel, and the others who invited her to dinner.

The Marneffes had excited Lisbeth's compassion by allowing her to see
the extreme poverty of the house, while varnishing it as usual with
the fairest colors; their friends were under obligations to them and
ungrateful; they had had much illness; Madame Fortin, her mother, had
never known of their distress, and had died believing herself wealthy to
the end, thanks to their superhuman efforts--and so forth.

"Poor people!" said she to her Cousin Hulot, "you are right to do what
you can for them; they are so brave