“We have reverted to Biblical traditions; the Golden Calf was the first State ledger,” he went on.  “You, my Adeline, have not gone beyond the Rue Plumet.  The Egyptians had lent enormous sums to the Hebrews, and what they ran after was not God’s people, but their capital.”

He looked at the Baroness with an expression which said, “How clever I am!”

“You know nothing of the devotion of every city man to his sacred hoard!” he went on, after a pause.  “Excuse me.  Listen to me.  Get this well into your head.—­You want two hundred thousand francs?  No one can produce the sum without selling some security.  Now consider!  To have two hundred thousand francs in hard cash it would be needful to sell about seven hundred thousand francs’ worth of stock at three per cent.  Well; and then you would only get the money on the third day.  That is the quickest way.  To persuade a man to part with a fortune—­for two hundred thousand francs is the whole fortune of many a man—­he ought at least to know where it is all going to, and for what purpose—­”

“It is going, my dear kind Crevel, to save the lives of two men, one of whom will die of grief and the other will kill himself!  And to save me too from going mad!  Am I not a little mad already?”

“Not so mad!” said he, taking Madame Hulot round the knees; “old Crevel has his price, since you thought of applying to him, my angel.”

“They submit to have a man’s arms round their knees, it would seem!” thought the saintly woman, covering her face with her hands.

“Once you offered me a fortune!” said she, turning red.

“Ay, mother! but that was three years ago!” replied Crevel.  “Well, you are handsomer now than ever I saw you!” he went on, taking the Baroness’ arm and pressing it to his heart.  “You have a good memory, my dear, by Jove!—­And now you see how wrong you were to be so prudish, for those three hundred thousand francs that you refused so magnanimously are in another woman’s pocket.  I loved you then, I love you still; but just look back these three years.

“When I said to you, ‘You shall be mine,’ what object had I in view?  I meant to be revenged on that rascal Hulot.  But your husband, my beauty, found himself a mistress—­a jewel of a woman, a pearl, a cunning hussy then aged three-and-twenty, for she is six-and-twenty now.  It struck me as more amusing, more complete, more Louis XV., more Marechal de Richelieu, more first-class altogether, to filch away that charmer, who, in point of fact, never cared for Hulot, and who for these three years has been madly in love with your humble servant.”

As he spoke, Crevel, from whose hands the Baroness had released her own, had resumed his favorite attitude; both thumbs were stuck into his armholes, and he was patting his ribs with his fingers, like two flapping wings, fancying that he was thus making himself very attractive and charming.  It was as much as to say, “And this is the man you would have nothing to say to!”