probably be my last visit to that woman. Your father is furious; he will
disinherit you--"

"His vanity will prevent that," said the son-in-law. "He was bent on
owning the estate of Presles, and he will keep it; I know him. Even if
he were to have children, Celestine would still have half of what he
might leave; the law forbids his giving away all his fortune.--Still,
these questions are nothing to me; I am only thinking of our honor.--Go
then, cousin," and he pressed Lisbeth's hand, "and listen carefully to
the contract."

Twenty minutes after, Lisbeth and Crevel reached the house in the Rue
Barbet, where Madame Marneffe was awaiting, in mild impatience, the
result of a step taken by her commands. Valerie had in the end fallen
a prey to the absorbing love which, once in her life, masters a woman's
heart. Wenceslas was its object, and, a failure as an artist, he became
in Madame Marneffe's hands a lover so perfect that he was to her what
she had been to Baron Hulot.

Valerie was holding a slipper in one hand, and Steinbock clasped the
other, while her head rested on his shoulder. The rambling conversation
in which they had been engaged ever since Crevel went out may be
ticketed, like certain lengthy literary efforts of our day, "_All rights
reserved_," for it cannot be reproduced. This masterpiece of personal
poetry naturally brought a regret to the artist's lips, and he said, not
without some bitterness:

"What a pity it is that I married; for if I had but waited, as Lisbeth
told me, I might now have married you."

"Who but a Pole would wish to make a wife of a devoted mistress?" cried
Valerie. "To change love into duty, and pleasure into a bore."

"I know you to be so fickle," replied Steinbock. "Did I not hear you
talking to Lisbeth of that Brazilian, Baron Montes?"

"Do you want to rid me of him?"

"It would be the only way to hinder his seeing you," said the
ex-sculptor.

"Let me tell you, my darling--for I tell you everything," said
Valerie--"I was saving him up for a husband.--The promises I have made
to that man!--Oh, long before I knew you," said she, in reply to a
movement from Wenceslas. "And those promises, of which he avails himself
to plague me, oblige me to get married almost secretly; for if he should
hear that I am marrying Crevel, he is the sort of man that--that would
kill me."

"Oh, as to that!" said Steinbock, with a scornful expression, which
conveyed that such a danger was small