intoxication that comes of triumph.
She had promised to marry Crevel if Marneffe should die; and the amorous
Crevel had transferred to the name of Valerie Fortin bonds bearing ten
thousand francs a year, the sum-total of what he had made in railway
speculations during the past three years, the returns on the capital of
a hundred thousand crowns which he had at first offered to the Baronne
Hulot. So Valerie now had an income of thirty-two thousand francs.

Crevel had just committed himself to a promise of far greater magnitude
than this gift of his surplus. In the paroxysm of rapture which _his
Duchess_ had given him from two to four--he gave this fine title to
Madame _de_ Marneffe to complete the illusion--for Valerie had surpassed
herself in the Rue du Dauphin that afternoon, he had thought well to
encourage her in her promised fidelity by giving her the prospect of
a certain little mansion, built in the Rue Barbette by an imprudent
contractor, who now wanted to sell it. Valerie could already see herself
in this delightful residence, with a fore-court and a garden, and
keeping a carriage!

"What respectable life can ever procure so much in so short a time, or
so easily?" said she to Lisbeth as she finished dressing. Lisbeth was to
dine with Valerie that evening, to tell Steinbock those things about the
lady which nobody can say about herself.

Madame Marneffe, radiant with satisfaction, came into the drawing-room
with modest grace, followed by Lisbeth dressed in black and yellow to
set her off.

"Good-evening, Claude," said she, giving her hand to the famous old
critic.

Claude Vignon, like many another, had become a political personage--a
word describing an ambitious man at the first stage of his career. The
_political personage_ of 1840 represents, in some degree, the _Abbe_ of
the eighteenth century. No drawing-room circle is complete without one.

"My dear, this is my cousin, Count Steinbock," said Lisbeth, introducing
Wenceslas, whom Valerie seemed to have overlooked.

"Oh yes, I recognized Monsieur le Comte," replied Valerie with a
gracious bow to the artist. "I often saw you in the Rue du Doyenne,
and I had the pleasure of being present at your wedding.--It would be
difficult, my dear," said she to Lisbeth, "to forget your adopted son
after once seeing him.--It is most kind of you, Monsieur Stidmann,"
she went on, "to have accepted my invitation at such short notice;
but necessity knows no law. I knew yo