Cousin Betty (4 of 190)

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COUSIN BETTY (CONT'D)

"To be faithful," he began, with well-acted indignation, "so faithful to a liber----"

"To a husband who is worthy of such fidelity," Madame Hulot put in, to hinder Crevel from saying a word she did not choose to hear.

"Come, madame; you wrote to bid me here, you ask the reasons for my conduct, you drive me to extremities with your imperial airs, your scorn, and your contempt! Any one might think I was a Negro. But I repeat it, and you may believe me, I have a right to--to make love to you, for---- But no; I love you well enough to hold my tongue."

"You may speak, monsieur. In a few days I shall be eight-and-forty; I am no prude; I can hear whatever you can say."

"Then will you give me your word of honor as an honest woman--for you are, alas for me! an honest woman--never to mention my name or to say that it was I who betrayed the secret?"

"If that is the condition on which you speak, I will swear never to tell any one from whom I heard the horrors you propose to tell me, not even my husband."

"I should think not indeed, for only you and he are concerned."

Madame Hulot turned pale.

"Oh, if you still really love Hulot, it will distress you. Shall I say no more?"

"Speak, monsieur; for by your account you wish to justify in my eyes the extraordinary declarations you have chosen to make me, and your persistency in tormenting a woman of my age, whose only wish is to see her daughter married, and then--to die in peace----"

"You see; you are unhappy."

"I, monsieur?"

"Yes, beautiful, noble creature!" cried Crevel. "You have indeed been too wretched!"

"Monsieur, be silent and go--or speak to me as you ought."

"Do you know, madame, how Master Hulot and I first made acquaintance? --At our mistresses', madame."

"Oh, monsieur!"

"Yes, madame, at our mistresses'," Crevel repeated in a melodramatic tone, and leaving his position to wave his right hand.

"Well, and what then?" said the Baroness coolly, to Crevel's great amazement.

Such mean seducers cannot understand a great soul.

"I, a widower five years since," Crevel began, in the tone of a man who has a story to tell, "and not wishing to marry again for the sake of the daughter I adore, not choosing either to cultivate any such connection in my own establishment, though I had at the time a very pretty lady-accountant. I set up, 'on her own account,' as they say, a little sempstress of fifteen--really a miracle of beauty, with whom I fell desperately in love. And in fact, madame, I asked an aunt of my own, my mother's sister, whom I sent for from the country, to live with the sweet creature and keep an eye on her, that she might behave as well as might be in this rather--what shall I say--shady?--no, delicate position.

"The child, whose talent for music was striking, had masters, she was educated--I had to give her something to do. Besides, I wished to be at once her father, her benefactor, and--well, out with it--her lover; to kill two birds with one stone, a good action and a sweetheart. For five years I was very happy. The girl had one of those voices that make the fortune of a theatre; I can only describe her by saying that she is a Duprez in petticoats. It cost me two thousand francs a year only to cultivate her talent as a singer. She made me music-mad; I took a box at the opera for her and for my daughter, and went there alternate evenings with Celestine or Josepha."

"What, the famous singer?"

"Yes, madame," said Crevel with pride, "the famous Josepha owes everything to me.--At last, in 1834, when the child was twenty, believing that I had attached her to me for ever, and being very weak where she was concerned, I thought I would give her a little amusement, and I introduced her to a pretty little actress, Jenny Cadine, whose life had been somewhat like her own. This actress also owed everything to a protector who had brought her up in leading-strings. That protector was Baron Hulot."

"I know that," said the Baroness, in a calm voice without the least agitation.

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