“Madame, I will show you the deep gratitude I feel towards you by not displaying the stage-singer Josepha, the Duc d’Herouville’s mistress, in the company of the noblest, saintliest image of virtue. I respect you too much to be seen by your side. This is not acted humility; it is sincere homage. You make me sorry, madame, that I cannot tread in your footsteps, in spite of the thorns that tear your feet and hands.—But it cannot be helped! I am one with art, as you are one with virtue.”
“Poor child!” said the Baroness, moved amid her own sorrows by a strange sense of compassionate sympathy; “I will pray to God for you; for you are the victim of society, which must have theatres. When you are old, repent—you will be heard if God vouchsafes to hear the prayers of a—”
“Of a martyr, madame,” Josepha put in, and she respectfully kissed the Baroness’ skirt.
But Adeline took the actress’ hand, and drawing her towards her, kissed her on the forehead. Coloring with pleasure Josepha saw the Baroness into the hackney coach with the humblest politeness.
“It must be some visiting Lady of Charity,” said the man-servant to the maid, “for she does not do so much for any one, not even for her dear friend Madame Jenny Cadine.”
“Wait a few days,” said she, “and you will see him, madame, or I renounce the God of my fathers—and that from a Jewess, you know, is a promise of success.”
At the very time when Madame Hulot was calling on Josepha, Victorin, in his study, was receiving an old woman of about seventy-five, who, to gain admission to the lawyer, had used the terrible name of the head of the detective force. The man in waiting announced:
“Madame de Saint-Esteve.”
“I have assumed one of my business names,” said she, taking a seat.
Victorin felt a sort of internal chill at the sight of this dreadful old woman. Though handsomely dressed, she was terrible to look upon, for her flat, colorless, strongly-marked face, furrowed with wrinkles, expressed a sort of cold malignity. Marat, as a woman of that age, might have been like this creature, a living embodiment of the Reign of Terror.