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To carry out this plan, at about three o'clock she went to the Baroness, though it was not the day when she was due to dine with her; but she wished to enjoy the anguish which Hortense must endure at the hour when Wenceslas was in the habit of making his appearance.
"Have you come to dinner?" asked the Baroness, concealing her disappointment.
"Well, yes."
"That's well," replied Hortense. "I will go and tell them to be punctual, for you do not like to be kept waiting."
Hortense nodded reassuringly to her mother, for she intended to tell the man-servant to send away Monsieur Steinbock if he should call; the man, however, happened to be out, so Hortense was obliged to give her orders to the maid, and the girl went upstairs to fetch her needlework and sit in the ante-room.
"And about my lover?" said Cousin Betty to Hortense, when the girl came back. "You never ask about him now?"
"To be sure, what is he doing?" said Hortense. "He has become famous. You ought to be very happy," she added in an undertone to Lisbeth. "Everybody is talking of Monsieur Wenceslas Steinbock."
"A great deal too much," replied she in her clear tones. "Monsieur is departing.—If it were only a matter of charming him so far as to defy the attractions of Paris, I know my power; but they say that in order to secure the services of such an artist, the Emperor Nichols has pardoned him——"
"Nonsense!" said the Baroness.
"When did you hear that?" asked Hortense, who felt as if her heart had the cramp.
"Well," said the villainous Lisbeth, "a person to whom he is bound by the most sacred ties—his wife—wrote yesterday to tell him so. He wants to be off. Oh, he will be a great fool to give up France to go to Russia!—"
Hortense looked at her mother, but her head sank on one side; the Baroness was only just in time to support her daughter, who dropped fainting, and as white as her lace kerchief.
"Lisbeth! you have killed my child!" cried the Baroness. "You were born to be our curse!"
"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.
Hortense threw herself into Lisbeth's arms and melted into tears.
"I owe my happiness to you," said she, "and I will never forget it."
"Cousin Betty," said the Baroness, embracing Lisbeth in her excitement at seeing matters so happily settled, "the Baron and I owe you a debt of gratitude, and we will pay it. Come and talk things over with me," she added, leading her away.
So Lisbeth, to all appearances, was playing the part of a good angel to the whole family; she was adored by Crevel and Hulot, by Adeline and Hortense.
"We wish you to give up working," said the Baroness. "If you earn forty sous a day, Sundays excepted, that makes six hundred francs a year. Well, then, how much have you saved?"
"Four thousand five hundred francs."
"Poor Betty!" said her cousin.
She raised her eyes to heaven, so deeply was she moved at the thought of all the labor and privation such a sum must represent accumulated during thirty years.
Lisbeth, misunderstanding the meaning of the exclamation, took it as the ironical pity of the successful woman, and her hatred was strengthened by a large infusion of venom at the very moment when her cousin had cast off her last shred of distrust of the tyrant of her childhood.
"We will add ten thousand five hundred francs to that sum," said Adeline, "and put it in trust so that you shall draw the interest for life with reversion to Hortense. Thus, you will have six hundred francs a year."
Lisbeth feigned the utmost satisfaction. When she went in, her handkerchief to her eyes, wiping away tears of joy, Hortense told her of all the favors being showered on Wenceslas, beloved of the family.
So when the Baron came home, he found his family all present; for the Baroness had formally accepted Wenceslas by the title of Son, and the wedding was fixed, if her husband should approve, for a day a fortnight hence. The moment he came into the drawing-room, Hulot was rushed at by his wife and daughter, who ran to meet him, Adeline to speak to him privately, and Hortense to kiss him.
"You have gone too far in pledging me to this, madame," said the Baron sternly. "You are not married yet," he added with a look at Steinbock, who turned pale.
"He has heard of my imprisonment," said the luckless artist to himself.
"Come, children," said he, leading his daughter and the young man into the garden; they all sat down on the moss-eaten seat in the summer-house.
"Monsieur le Comte, do you love my daughter as well as I loved her mother?" he asked.
"More, monsieur," said the sculptor.
"Her mother was a peasant's daughter, and had not a farthing of her own."
"Only give me Mademoiselle Hortense just as she is, without a trousseau even——"
"So I should think!" said the Baron, smiling. "Hortense is the daughter of the Baron Hulot d'Ervy, Councillor of State, high up in the War Office, Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor, and the brother to Count Hulot, whose glory is immortal, and who will ere long be Marshal of France! And—she has a marriage portion.
"It is true," said the impassioned artist. "I must seem very ambitious. But if my dear Hortense were a laborer's daughter, I would marry her——"
"That is just what I wanted to know," replied the Baron. "Run away, Hortense, and leave me to talk business with Monsieur le Comte.—He really loves you, you see!"
"Oh, papa, I was sure you were only in jest," said the happy girl.
"My dear Steinbock," said the Baron, with elaborate grace of diction and the most perfect manners, as soon as he and the artist were alone, "I promised my son a fortune of two hundred thousand francs, of