“Hector!” she said, “are you come back to us?  Has God taken pity on our family?”

“Dear Adeline,” replied the Baron, coming in and seating his wife by his side on a couch, “you are the saintliest creature I ever knew; I have long known myself to be unworthy of you.”

“You would have very little to do, my dear,” said she, holding Hulot’s hand and trembling so violently that it was as though she had a palsy, “very little to set things in order—­”

She dared not proceed; she felt that every word would be a reproof, and she did not wish to mar the happiness with which this meeting was inundating her soul.

“It is Hortense who has brought me here,” said Hulot.  “That child may do us far more harm by her hasty proceeding than my absurd passion for Valerie has ever done.  But we will discuss all this to-morrow morning.  Hortense is asleep, Mariette tells me; we will not disturb her.”

“Yes,” said Madame Hulot, suddenly plunged into the depths of grief.

She understood that the Baron’s return was prompted not so much by the wish to see his family as by some ulterior interest.

“Leave her in peace till to-morrow,” said the mother.  “The poor child is in a deplorable condition; she has been crying all day.”

At nine the next morning, the Baron, awaiting his daughter, whom he had sent for, was pacing the large, deserted drawing-room, trying to find arguments by which to conquer the most difficult form of obstinacy there is to deal with—­that of a young wife, offended and implacable, as blameless youth ever is, in its ignorance of the disgraceful compromises of the world, of its passions and interests.

“Here I am, papa,” said Hortense in a tremulous voice, and looking pale from her miseries.

Hulot, sitting down, took his daughter round the waist, and drew her down to sit on his knee.

“Well, my child,” said he, kissing her forehead, “so there are troubles at home, and you have been hasty and headstrong?  That is not like a well-bred child.  My Hortense ought not to have taken such a decisive step as that of leaving her house and deserting her husband on her own account, and without consulting her parents.  If my darling girl had come to see her kind and admirable mother, she would not have given me this cruel pain I feel!—­You do not know the world; it is malignantly spiteful.  People will perhaps say that your husband sent you back to your parents.  Children brought up as you were, on your mother’s lap, remain artless; maidenly passion like yours for Wenceslas, unfortunately, makes no allowances; it acts on every impulse.  The little heart is moved, the head follows suit.  You would burn down Paris to be revenged, with no thought of the courts of justice!

“When your old father tells you that you have outraged the proprieties, you may take his word for it.—­I say nothing of the cruel pain you have given me.  It is bitter, I assure you, for you throw all the blame on a woman of whose heart you know nothing, and whose hostility may become disastrous.  And you, alas! so full of guileless innocence and purity, can have no suspicions; but you may be vilified and slandered.—­Besides, my darling pet, you have taken a foolish jest too seriously.  I can assure you, on my honor, that your husband is blameless.  Madame Marneffe—­”