evidently uneasy, that his wife and children felt
the gravest apprehensions.

"Lisbeth," said the Baroness, "I must find out what is wrong with
Hector; I never saw him in such a state. Stay a day or two longer with
that woman; he tells her everything, and we can then learn what has so
suddenly upset him. Be quite easy; we will arrange your marriage to the
Marshal, for it is really necessary."

"I shall never forget the courage you have shown this morning," said
Hortense, embracing Lisbeth.

"You have avenged our poor mother," said Victorin.

The Marshal looked on with curiosity at all the display of affection
lavished on Lisbeth, who went off to report the scene to Valerie.

This sketch will enable guileless souls to understand what various
mischief Madame Marneffes may do in a family, and the means by which
they reach poor virtuous wives apparently so far out of their ken. And
then, if we only transfer, in fancy, such doings to the upper class of
society about a throne, and if we consider what kings' mistresses must
have cost them, we may estimate the debt owed by a nation to a sovereign
who sets the example of a decent and domestic life.

In Paris each ministry is a little town by itself, whence women are
banished; but there is just as much detraction and scandal as though
the feminine population were admitted there. At the end of three years,
Monsieur Marneffe's position was perfectly clear and open to the day,
and in every room one and another asked, "Is Marneffe to be, or not to
be, Coquet's successor?" Exactly as the question might have been put
to the Chamber, "Will the estimates pass or not pass?" The smallest
initiative on the part of the board of Management was commented on;
everything in Baron Hulot's department was carefully noted. The astute
State Councillor had enlisted on his side the victim of Marneffe's
promotion, a hard-working clerk, telling him that if he could fill
Marneffe's place, he would certainly succeed to it; he had told him
that the man was dying. So this clerk was scheming for Marneffe's
advancement.

When Hulot went through his anteroom, full of visitors, he saw
Marneffe's colorless face in a corner, and sent for him before any one
else.

"What do you want of me, my dear fellow?" said the Baron, disguising his
anxiety.

"Monsieur le Directeur, I am the laughing-stock of the office, for it
has become known that the chief of the clerks has left this morning for
a holiday, on