“The woman is very pretty,” said Hortense.

And a thousand suspicions cropped up in her mind, as, in India, tall, rank plants spring up in a night-time.

By the end of three weeks, Madame Marneffe was intensely irritated by Hortense.  Women of that stamp have a pride of their own; they insist that men shall kiss the devil’s hoof; they have no forgiveness for the virtue that does not quail before their dominion, or that even holds its own against them.  Now, in all that time Wenceslas had not paid one visit in the Rue Vanneau, not even that which politeness required to a woman who had sat for Delilah.

Whenever Lisbeth called on the Steinbocks, there had been nobody at home.  Monsieur and madame lived in the studio.  Lisbeth, following the turtle doves to their nest at le Gros-Caillou, found Wenceslas hard at work, and was informed by the cook that madame never left monsieur’s side.  Wenceslas was a slave to the autocracy of love.  So now Valerie, on her own account, took part with Lisbeth in her hatred of Hortense.

Women cling to a lover that another woman is fighting for, just as much as men do to women round whom many coxcombs are buzzing.  Thus any reflections a propos to Madame Marneffe are equally applicable to any lady-killing rake; he is, in fact, a sort of male courtesan.  Valerie’s last fancy was a madness; above all, she was bent on getting her group; she was even thinking of going one morning to the studio to see Wenceslas, when a serious incident arose of the kind which, to a woman of that class, may be called the spoil of war.

This is how Valerie announced this wholly personal event.

She was breakfasting with Lisbeth and her husband.

“I say, Marneffe, what would you say to being a second time a father?”

“You don’t mean it—­a baby?—­Oh, let me kiss you!”

He rose and went round the table; his wife held up her head so that he could just kiss her hair.

“If that is so,” he went on, “I am head-clerk and officer of the Legion of Honor at once.  But you must understand, my dear, Stanislas is not to be the sufferer, poor little man.”

“Poor little man?” Lisbeth put in.  “You have not set your eyes on him these seven months.  I am supposed to be his mother at the school; I am the only person in the house who takes any trouble about him.”

“A brat that costs us a hundred crowns a quarter!” said Valerie.  “And he, at any rate, is your own child, Marneffe.  You ought to pay for his schooling out of your salary.—­The newcomer, far from reminding us of butcher’s bills, will rescue us from want.”

“Valerie,” replied Marneffe, assuming an attitude like Crevel, “I hope that Monsieur le Baron Hulot will take proper charge of his son, and not lay the burden on a poor clerk.  I intend to keep him well up to the mark.  So take the necessary steps, madame!  Get him to write you letters in which he alludes to his satisfaction, for he is rather backward in coming forward in regard to my appointment.”