d merchant, if he is a grand
gentleman, plays, and must play, the part with method and economy; he
carries his ideas of order into everything. He opens an account for
his little amusements, and devotes certain profits to that head of
expenditure; but as to touching his capital! it would be folly. My
children will have their fortune intact, mine and my wife's; but I do
not suppose that they wish their father to be dull, a monk and a mummy!
My life is a very jolly one; I float gaily down the stream. I fulfil all
the duties imposed on me by law, by my affections, and by family ties,
just as I always used to be punctual in paying my bills when they fell
due. If only my children conduct themselves in their domestic life as
I do, I shall be satisfied; and for the present, so long as my
follies--for I have committed follies--are no loss to any one but the
gulls--excuse me, you do not perhaps understand the slang word--they
will have nothing to blame me for, and will find a tidy little sum still
left when I die. Your children cannot say as much of their father, who
is ruining his son and my daughter by his pranks--"

The Baroness was getting further from her object as he went on.

"You are very unkind about my husband, my dear Crevel--and yet, if you
had found his wife obliging, you would have been his best friend----"

She shot a burning glance at Crevel; but, like Dubois, who gave the
Regent three kicks, she affected too much, and the rakish perfumer's
thoughts jumped at such profligate suggestions, that he said to himself,
"Does she want to turn the tables on Hulot?--Does she think me more
attractive as a Mayor than as a National Guardsman? Women are strange
creatures!"

And he assumed the position of his second manner, looking at the
Baroness with his _Regency_ leer.

"I could almost fancy," she went on, "that you want to visit on him your
resentment against the virtue that resisted you--in a woman whom you
loved well enough--to--to buy her," she added in a low voice.

"In a divine woman," Crevel replied, with a meaning smile at the
Baroness, who looked down while tears rose to her eyes. "For you
have swallowed not a few bitter pills!--in these three years--hey, my
beauty?"

"Do not talk of my troubles, dear Crevel; they are too much for the
endurance of a mere human being. Ah! if you still love me, you may
drag me out of the pit in which I lie. Yes, I am in hell torment! The
regicides who were racked and nipped and