“She is too charming,” replied Wenceslas.

“You would not listen to me,” said Betty.  “Oh! my little Wenceslas, if you and I had never parted, you would have been that siren’s lover; you might have married her when she was a widow, and you would have had her forty thousand francs a year——­”

“Really?”

“Certainly,” replied Lisbeth.  “Now, take care of yourself; I warned you of the danger; do not singe your wings in the candle!—­Come, give me your arm, dinner is served.”

No language could be so thoroughly demoralizing as this; for if you show a Pole a precipice, he is bound to leap it.  As a nation they have the very spirit of cavalry; they fancy they can ride down every obstacle and come out victorious.  The spur applied by Lisbeth to Steinbock’s vanity was intensified by the appearance of the dining-room, bright with handsome silver plate; the dinner was served with every refinement and extravagance of Parisian luxury.

“I should have done better to take Celimene,” thought he to himself.

All through the dinner Hulot was charming; pleased to see his son-in-law at that table, and yet more happy in the prospect of a reconciliation with Valerie, whose fidelity he proposed to secure by the promise of Coquet’s head-clerkship.  Stidmann responded to the Baron’s amiability by shafts of Parisian banter and an artist’s high spirits.  Steinbock would not allow himself to be eclipsed by his friend; he too was witty, said amusing things, made his mark, and was pleased with himself; Madame Marneffe smiled at him several times to show that she quite understood him.

The good meal and heady wines completed the work; Wenceslas was deep in what must be called the slough of dissipation.  Excited by just a glass too much, he stretched himself on a settee after dinner, sunk in physical and mental ecstasy, which Madame Marneffe wrought to the highest pitch by coming to sit down by him—­airy, scented, pretty enough to damn an angel.  She bent over Wenceslas and almost touched his ear as she whispered to him: 

“We cannot talk over business matters this evening, unless you will remain till the last.  Between us—­you, Lisbeth, and me—­we can settle everything to suit you.”

“Ah, Madame, you are an angel!” replied Wenceslas, also in a murmur.  “I was a pretty fool not to listen to Lisbeth—­”

“What did she say?”

“She declared, in the Rue du Doyenne, that you loved me!”

Madame Marneffe looked at him, seemed covered with confusion, and hastily left her seat.  A young and pretty woman never rouses the hope of immediate success with impunity.  This retreat, the impulse of a virtuous woman who is crushing a passion in the depths of her heart, was a thousand times more effective than the most reckless avowal.  Desire was so thoroughly aroused in Wenceslas that he doubled his attentions to Valerie.  A woman seen by all is a woman wished for.  Hence the terrible power of actresses.  Madame Marneffe, knowing that she was watched, behaved like an admired actress.  She was quite charming, and her success was immense.