Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

"Bless me! what fault of mine is this, Adeline?" replied Lisbeth, as she rose with a menacing aspect, of which the Baroness, in her alarm, took no notice.

"I was wrong," said Adeline, supporting the girl. "Ring."

At this instant the door opened, the women both looked round, and saw Wenceslas Steinbock, who had been admitted by the cook in the maid's absence.

"Hortense!" cried the artist, with one spring to the group of women. And he kissed his betrothed before her mother's eyes, on the forehead, and so reverently, that the Baroness could not be angry. It was a better restorative than any smelling salts. Hortense opened her eyes, saw Wenceslas, and her color came back. In a few minutes she had quite recovered.

"So this was your secret?" said Lisbeth, smiling at Wenceslas, and affecting to guess the facts from her two cousins' confusion.

"But how did you steal away my lover?" said she, leading Hortense into the garden.

Hortense artlessly told the romance of her love. Her father and mother, she said, being convinced that Lisbeth would never marry, had authorized the Count's visits. Only Hortense, like a full-blown Agnes, attributed to chance her purchase of the group and the introduction of the artist, who, by her account, had insisted on knowing the name of his first purchaser.

Presently Steinbock came out to join the cousins, and thanked the old maid effusively for his prompt release. Lisbeth replied Jesuitically that the creditor having given very vague promises, she had not hoped to be able to get him out before the morrow, and that the person who had lent her the money, ashamed, perhaps, of such mean conduct, had been beforehand with her. The old maid appeared to be perfectly content, and congratulated Wenceslas on his happiness.

"You bad boy!" said she, before Hortense and her mother, "if you had only told me the evening before last that you loved my cousin Hortense, and that she loved you, you would have spared me many tears. I thought that you were deserting your old friend, your governess; while, on the contrary, you are to become my cousin; henceforth, you will be connected with me, remotely, it is true, but by ties that amply justify the feelings I have for you." And she kissed Wenceslas on the forehead.