Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

"I am off, then," said Crevel, kissing the Baroness' hand. "But what has that unhappy Hulot done?"

"He has swindled the Government."

"Good Heavens! I fly, madame; I understand, I admire you!"

Crevel bent one knee, kissed Madame Hulot's skirt, and vanished, saying, "You will see me soon."

Unluckily, on his way from the Rue Plumet to his own house, to fetch the securities, Crevel went along the Rue Vanneau, and he could not resist going in to see his little Duchess. His face still bore an agitated expression.

He went straight into Valerie's room, who was having her hair dressed. She looked at Crevel in her glass, and, like every woman of that sort, was annoyed, before she knew anything about it, to see that he was moved by some strong feeling of which she was not the cause.

"What is the matter, my dear?" said she. "Is that a face to bring in to your little Duchess? I will not be your Duchess any more, monsieur, no more than I will be your 'little duck,' you old monster."

Crevel replied by a melancholy smile and a glance at the maid.

"Reine, child, that will do for to-day; I can finish my hair myself. Give me my Chinese wrapper; my gentleman seems to me out of sorts."

Reine, whose face was pitted like a colander, and who seemed to have been made on purpose to wait on Valerie, smiled meaningly in reply, and brought the dressing-gown. Valerie took off her combing-wrapper; she was in her shift, and she wriggled into the dressing-gown like a snake into a clump of grass.

"Madame is not at home?"

"What a question!" said Valerie.--"Come, tell me, my big puss, have Rives Gauches gone down?"

"No."