“Well?” cried Victorin, with a gulp.
“Well, you do not cry off the expenses?”
“On the contrary.”
“They run up to twenty-three thousand francs already.”
Victorin looked helplessly at the woman.
“Well, could we hoodwink you, you, one of the shining lights of the law?” said she. “For that sum we have secured a maid’s conscience and a picture by Raphael.—It is not dear.”
Hulot, still bewildered, sat with wide open eyes.
“Well, then,” his visitor went on, “we have purchased the honesty of Mademoiselle Reine Tousard, a damsel from whom Madame Marneffe has no secrets—”
“I understand!”
“But if you shy, say so.”