at six, and spent the evening with his
family. He twice took Adeline and Hortense to the play. The mother and
daughter paid for three thanksgiving masses, and prayed to God to suffer
them to keep the husband and father He had restored to them.

One evening Victorin Hulot, seeing his father retire for the night, said
to his mother:

"Well, we are at any rate so far happy that my father has come back to
us. My wife and I shall never regret our capital if only this lasts--"

"Your father is nearly seventy," said the Baroness. "He still thinks
of Madame Marneffe, that I can see; but he will forget her in time.
A passion for women is not like gambling, or speculation, or avarice;
there is an end to it."

But Adeline, still beautiful in spite of her fifty years and her
sorrows, in this was mistaken. Profligates, men whom Nature has gifted
with the precious power of loving beyond the limits ordinarily set to
love, rarely are as old as their age.

During this relapse into virtue Baron Hulot had been three times to
the Rue du Dauphin, and had certainly not been the man of seventy. His
rekindled passion made him young again, and he would have sacrificed his
honor to Valerie, his family, his all, without a regret. But Valerie,
now completely altered, never mentioned money, not even the twelve
hundred francs a year to be settled on their son; on the contrary, she
offered him money, she loved Hulot as a woman of six-and-thirty loves a
handsome law-student--a poor, poetical, ardent boy. And the hapless wife
fancied she had reconquered her dear Hector!

The fourth meeting between this couple had been agreed upon at the
end of the third, exactly as formerly in Italian theatres the play was
announced for the next night. The hour fixed was nine in the morning.
On the next day when the happiness was due for which the amorous old man
had resigned himself to domestic rules, at about eight in the morning,
Reine came and asked to see the Baron. Hulot, fearing some catastrophe,
went out to speak with Reine, who would not come into the anteroom. The
faithful waiting-maid gave him the following note:--

"DEAR OLD MAN,--Do not go to the Rue du Dauphin. Our incubus is
ill, and I must nurse him; but be there this evening at nine.
Crevel is at Corbeil with Monsieur Lebas; so I am sure he will
bring no princess to his little palace. I have made arrangements
here to be free for the night and get back before Marneffe is
awake. A