The Baroness’ satisfaction, though disguised under maternal dignity, was as great as her daughter’s; for, of the three ways of marrying Hortense of which Crevel had spoken, the best, as she opined, was about to be realized. And she regarded this little drama as an answer by Providence to her fervent prayers.
Mademoiselle Fischer’s galley slave, obliged at last to go home, thought he might hide his joy as a lover under his glee as an artist rejoicing over his first success.
“Victory! my group is sold to the Duc d’Herouville, who is going to give me some commissions,” cried he, throwing the twelve hundred francs in gold on the table before the old maid.
He had, as may be supposed concealed Hortense’s purse; it lay next to his heart.
“And a very good thing too,” said Lisbeth. “I was working myself to death. You see, child, money comes in slowly in the business you have taken up, for this is the first you have earned, and you have been grinding at it for near on five years now. That money barely repays me for what you have cost me since I took your promissory note; that is all I have got by my savings. But be sure of one thing,” she said, after counting the gold, “this money will all be spent on you. There is enough there to keep us going for a year. In a year you may now be able to pay your debt and have a snug little sum of your own, if you go on in the same way.”
Wenceslas, finding his trick successful, expatiated on the Duc d’Herouville.
“I will fit you out in a black suit, and get you some new linen,” said Lisbeth, “for you must appear presentably before your patrons; and then you must have a larger and better apartment than your horrible garret, and furnish it property.—You look so bright, you are not like the same creature,” she added, gazing at Wenceslas.
“But my work is pronounced a masterpiece.”
“Well, so much the better! Do some more,” said the arid creature, who was nothing but practical, and incapable of understanding the joy of triumph or of beauty in Art. “Trouble your head no further about what you have sold; make something else to sell. You have spent two hundred francs in money, to say nothing of your time and your labor, on that devil of a Samson. Your clock will cost you more than two thousand francs to execute. I tell you what, if you will listen to me, you will finish the two little boys crowning the little girl with cornflowers; that would just suit the Parisians.—I will go round to Monsieur Graff the tailor before going to Monsieur Crevel.—Go up now and leave me to dress.”
Next day the Baron, perfectly crazy about Madame Marneffe, went to see Cousin Betty, who was considerably amazed on opening the door to see who her visitor was, for he had never called on her before. She at once said to herself, “Can it be that Hortense wants my lover?”—for she had heard the evening before, at Monsieur Crevel’s, that the marriage with the Councillor of the Supreme Court was broken off.