Madame Marneffe broke off in this spurring harangue; Lisbeth frightened her.  The peasant-woman’s face was terrible; her piercing black eyes had the glare of the tiger’s; her face was like that we ascribe to a pythoness; she set her teeth to keep them from chattering, and her whole frame quivered convulsively.  She had pushed her clenched fingers under her cap to clutch her hair and support her head, which felt too heavy; she was on fire.  The smoke of the flame that scorched her seemed to emanate from her wrinkles as from the crevasses rent by a volcanic eruption.  It was a startling spectacle.

“Well, why do you stop?” she asked in a hollow voice.  “I will be all to you that I have been to him.—­Oh, I would have given him my life-blood!”

“You loved him then?”

“Like a child of my own!”

“Well, then,” said Madame Marneffe, with a breath of relief, “if you only love him in that way, you will be very happy—­for you wish him to be happy?”

Lisbeth replied by a nod as hasty as a madwoman’s.

“He is to marry your Cousin Hortense in a month’s time.”

“Hortense!” shrieked the old maid, striking her forehead, and starting to her feet.

“Well, but then you were really in love with this young man?” asked Valerie.

“My dear, we are bound for life and death, you and I,” said Mademoiselle Fischer.  “Yes, if you have any love affairs, to me they are sacred.  Your vices will be virtues in my eyes.—­For I shall need your vices!”

“Then did you live with him?” asked Valerie.

“No; I meant to be a mother to him.”

“I give it up.  I cannot understand,” said Valerie.  “In that case you are neither betrayed nor cheated, and you ought to be very happy to see him so well married; he is now fairly afloat.  And, at any rate, your day is over.  Our artist goes to Madame Hulot’s every evening as soon as you go out to dinner.”

“Adeline!” muttered Lisbeth.  “Oh, Adeline, you shall pay for this!  I will make you uglier than I am.”

“You are as pale as death!” exclaimed Valerie.  “There is something wrong?—­Oh, what a fool I am!  The mother and daughter must have suspected that you would raise some obstacles in the way of this affair since they have kept it from you,” said Madame Marneffe.  “But if you did not live with the young man, my dear, all this is a greater puzzle to me than my husband’s feelings——­”

“Ah, you don’t know,” said Lisbeth; “you have no idea of all their tricks.  It is the last blow that kills.  And how many such blows have I had to bruise my soul!  You don’t know that from the time when I could first feel, I have been victimized for Adeline.  I was beaten, and she was petted; I was dressed like a scullion, and she had clothes like a lady’s; I dug in the garden and cleaned the vegetables, and she—­she never lifted a finger for anything but to make up some finery!—­She married the Baron, she came