distraction, failed
to hear. The scene was changing its character. Crevel was becoming
"master of the situation," to use his own words. The vastness of the
sum startled Crevel so greatly that his emotion at seeing this handsome
woman in tears at his feet was forgotten. Besides, however angelical
and saintly a woman may be, when she is crying bitterly her beauty
disappears. A Madame Marneffe, as has been seen, whimpers now and then,
a tear trickles down her cheek; but as to melting into tears and making
her eyes and nose red!--never would she commit such a blunder.

"Come, child, compose yourself.--Deuce take it!" Crevel went on, taking
Madame Hulot's hands in his own and patting them. "Why do you apply to
me for two hundred thousand francs? What do you want with them? Whom are
they for?"

"Do not," said she, "insist on any explanations. Give me the money!--You
will save three lives and the honor of our children."

"And do you suppose, my good mother, that in all Paris you will find a
man who at a word from a half-crazy woman will go off _hic et nunc_,
and bring out of some drawer, Heaven knows where, two hundred thousand
francs that have been lying simmering there till she is pleased to scoop
them up? Is that all you know of life and of business, my beauty? Your
folks are in a bad way; you may send them the last sacraments; for no
one in Paris but her Divine Highness Madame la Banque, or the great
Nucingen, or some miserable miser who is in love with gold as we other
folks are with a woman, could produce such a miracle! The civil list,
civil as it may be, would beg you to call again tomorrow. Every one
invests his money, and turns it over to the best of his powers.

"You are quite mistaken, my angel, if you suppose that King
Louis-Philippe rules us; he himself knows better than that. He knows as
well as we do that supreme above the Charter reigns the holy, venerated,
substantial, delightful, obliging, beautiful, noble, ever-youthful,
and all-powerful five-franc piece! But money, my beauty, insists on
interest, and is always engaged in seeking it! 'God of the Jews, thou
art supreme!' says Racine. The perennial parable of the golden calf, you
see!--In the days of Moses there was stock-jobbing in the desert!

"We have reverted to Biblical traditions; the Golden Calf was the first
State ledger," he went on. "You, my Adeline, have not gone beyond the
Rue Plumet. The Egyptians had lent enormous sums to the Hebrews, and