At the liveliest moment of the evening Crevel led the Baron aside, and said in a whisper, with the most natural manner possible: 

“By Jove! that’s a pretty woman—­the little lady in pink who has opened a racking fire on you from her eyes.”

“Which?”

“The wife of that clerk you are promoting, heaven knows how!—­Madame Marneffe.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Listen, Hulot; I will try to forgive you the ill you have done me if only you will introduce me to her—­I will take you to Heloise.  Everybody is asking who is that charming creature.  Are you sure that it will strike no one how and why her husband’s appointment got itself signed?—­You happy rascal, she is worth a whole office.—­I would serve in her office only too gladly.—­Come, cinna, let us be friends.”

“Better friends than ever,” said the Baron to the perfumer, “and I promise you I will be a good fellow.  Within a month you shall dine with that little angel.—­For it is an angel this time, old boy.  And I advise you, like me, to have done with the devils.”

Cousin Betty, who had moved to the Rue Vanneau, into a nice little apartment on the third floor, left the ball at ten o’clock, but came back to see with her own eyes the two bonds bearing twelve hundred francs interest; one of them was the property of the Countess Steinbock, the other was in the name of Madame Hulot.

It is thus intelligible that Monsieur Crevel should have spoken to Hulot about Madame Marneffe, as knowing what was a secret to the rest of the world; for, as Monsieur Marneffe was away, no one but Lisbeth Fischer, besides the Baron and Valerie, was initiated into the mystery.

The Baron had made a blunder in giving Madame Marneffe a dress far too magnificent for the wife of a subordinate official; other women were jealous alike of her beauty and of her gown.  There was much whispering behind fans, for the poverty of the Marneffes was known to every one in the office; the husband had been petitioning for help at the very moment when the Baron had been so smitten with madame.  Also, Hector could not conceal his exultation at seeing Valerie’s success; and she, severely proper, very lady-like, and greatly envied, was the object of that strict examination which women so greatly fear when they appear for the first time in a new circle of society.

After seeing his wife into a carriage with his daughter and his son-in-law, Hulot managed to escape unperceived, leaving his son and Celestine to do the honors of the house.  He got into Madame Marneffe’s carriage to see her home, but he found her silent and pensive, almost melancholy.

“My happiness makes you very sad, Valerie,” said he, putting his arm round her and drawing her to him.

“Can you wonder, my dear,” said she, “that a hapless woman should be a little depressed at the thought of her first fall from virtue, even when her husband’s atrocities have set her free?  Do you suppose that I have no soul, no beliefs, no religion?  Your glee this evening has been really too barefaced; you have paraded me odiously.  Really, a schoolboy would have been less of a coxcomb.  And the ladies have dissected me with their side-glances and their satirical remarks.  Every woman has some care for her reputation, and you have wrecked mine.