“What do you think of it all, my darling?” she said to Lisbeth in conclusion.  “Which shall I be when the time comes—­Madame Crevel, or Madame Montes?”

“Crevel will not last more than ten years, such a profligate as he is,” replied Lisbeth.  “Montes is young.  Crevel will leave you about thirty thousand francs a year.  Let Montes wait; he will be happy enough as Benjamin.  And so, by the time you are three-and-thirty, if you take care of your looks, you may marry your Brazilian and make a fine show with sixty thousand francs a year of your own—­especially under the wing of a Marechale.”

“Yes, but Montes is a Brazilian; he will never make his mark,” observed Valerie.

“We live in the day of railways,” said Lisbeth, “when foreigners rise to high positions in France.”

“We shall see,” replied Valerie, “when Marneffe is dead.  He has not much longer to suffer.”

“These attacks that return so often are a sort of physical remorse,” said Lisbeth.  “Well, I am off to see Hortense.”

“Yes—­go, my angel!” replied Valerie.  “And bring me my artist.—­Three years, and I have not gained an inch of ground!  It is a disgrace to both of us!—­Wenceslas and Henri—­these are my two passions—­one for love, the other for fancy.”

“You are lovely this morning,” said Lisbeth, putting her arm round Valerie’s waist and kissing her forehead.  “I enjoy all your pleasures, your good fortune, your dresses—­I never really lived till the day when we became sisters.”

“Wait a moment, my tiger-cat!” cried Valerie, laughing; “your shawl is crooked.  You cannot put a shawl on yet in spite of my lessons for three years—­and you want to be Madame la Marechale Hulot!”

Shod in prunella boots, over gray silk stockings, in a gown of handsome corded silk, her hair in smooth bands under a very pretty black velvet bonnet, lined with yellow satin, Lisbeth made her way to the Rue Saint-Dominique by the Boulevard des Invalides, wondering whether sheer dejection would at last break down Hortense’s brave spirit, and whether Sarmatian instability, taken at a moment when, with such a character, everything is possible, would be too much for Steinbock’s constancy.

Hortense and Wenceslas had the ground floor of a house situated at the corner of the Rue Saint-Dominique and the Esplanade des Invalides.  These rooms, once in harmony with the honeymoon, now had that half-new, half-faded look that may be called the autumnal aspect of furniture.  Newly married folks are as lavish and wasteful, without knowing it or intending it, of everything about them as they are of their affection.  Thinking only of themselves, they reck little of the future, which, at a later time, weighs on the mother of a family.

Lisbeth found Hortense just as she had finished dressing a baby Wenceslas, who had been carried into the garden.

“Good-morning, Betty,” said Hortense, opening the door herself to her cousin.  The cook was gone out, and the house-servant, who was also the nurse, was doing some washing.