Stidmann bowed to the ladies and went away.

“It is settled,” said Wenceslas, when he came in from taking leave of Stidmann.  “But there are six months’ work to be done, and we must live meanwhile.”

“There are my diamonds,” cried the young Countess, with the impetuous heroism of a loving woman.

A tear rose in Wenceslas’ eye.

“Oh, I am going to work,” said he, sitting down by his wife and drawing her on to his knee.  “I will do odd jobs—­a wedding chest, bronze groups——­”

“But, my children,” said Lisbeth; “for, as you know, you will be my heirs, and I shall leave you a very comfortable sum, believe me, especially if you help me to marry the Marshal; nay, if we succeed in that quickly, I will take you all to board with me—­you and Adeline.  We should live very happily together.—­But for the moment, listen to the voice of my long experience.  Do not fly to the Mont-de-Piete; it is the ruin of the borrower.  I have always found that when the interest was due, those who had pledged their things had nothing wherewith to pay up, and then all is lost.  I can get you a loan at five per cent on your note of hand.”

“Oh, we are saved!” said Hortense.

“Well, then, child, Wenceslas had better come with me to see the lender, who will oblige him at my request.  It is Madame Marneffe.  If you flatter her a little—­for she is as vain as a parvenue—­she will get you out of the scrape in the most obliging way.  Come yourself and see her, my dear Hortense.”

Hortense looked at her husband with the expression a man condemned to death must wear on his way to the scaffold.

“Claude Vignon took Stidmann there,” said Wenceslas.  “He says it is a very pleasant house.”

Hortense’s head fell.  What she felt can only be expressed in one word; it was not pain; it was illness.

“But, my dear Hortense, you must learn something of life!” exclaimed Lisbeth, understanding the eloquence of her cousin’s looks.  “Otherwise, like your mother, you will find yourself abandoned in a deserted room, where you will weep like Calypso on the departure of Ulysses, and at an age when there is no hope of Telemachus—­” she added, repeating a jest of Madame Marneffe’s.  “We have to regard the people in the world as tools which we can make use of or let alone, according as they can serve our turn.  Make use of Madame Marneffe now, my dears, and let her alone by and by.  Are you afraid lest Wenceslas, who worships you, should fall in love with a woman four or five years older than himself, as yellow as a bundle of field peas, and——?”

“I would far rather pawn my diamonds,” said Hortense.  “Oh, never go there, Wenceslas!—­It is hell!”

“Hortense is right,” said Steinbock, kissing his wife.

“Thank you, my dearest,” said Hortense, delighted.  “My husband is an angel, you see, Lisbeth.  He does not gamble, he goes nowhere without me; if he only could stick to work—­oh, I should be too happy.  Why take us on show to my father’s mistress, a woman who is ruining him and is the cause of troubles that are killing my heroic mother?”