"What a low scoundrel!" said Hulot to himself, as he went upstairs to Lisbeth. "I understand her letter now. Valerie and I will go away from Paris. Valerie is wholly mine for the remainder of my days; she will close my eyes."
Lisbeth was out. Madame Olivier told the Baron that she had gone to his wife's house, thinking that she would find him there.
"Poor thing! I should never have expected her to be so sharp as she was this morning," thought Hulot, recalling Lisbeth's behavior as he made his way from the Rue Vanneau to the Rue Plumet.
As he turned the corner of the Rue Vanneau and the Rue de Babylone, he looked back at the Eden whence Hymen had expelled him with the sword of the law. Valerie, at her window, was watching his departure; as he glanced up, she waved her handkerchief, but the rascally Marneffe hit his wife's cap and dragged her violently away from the window. A tear rose to the great official's eye.
"Oh! to be so well loved! To see a woman so ill used, and to be so nearly seventy years old!" thought he.
Lisbeth had come to give the family the good news. Adeline and Hortense had already heard that the Baron, not choosing to compromise himself in the eyes of the whole office by appointing Marneffe to the first class, would be turned from the door by the Hulot-hating husband. Adeline, very happy, had ordered a dinner that her Hector was to like better than any of Valerie's; and Lisbeth, in her devotion, was helping Mariette to achieve this difficult result. Cousin Betty was the idol of the hour. Mother and daughter kissed her hands, and had told her with touching delight that the Marshal consented to have her as his housekeeper.
"And from that, my dear, there is but one step to becoming his wife!" said Adeline.
"In fact, he did not say no when Victorin mentioned it," added the Countess.
The Baron was welcomed home with such charming proofs of affection, so pathetically overflowing with love, that he was fain to conceal his troubles.
Marshal Hulot came to dinner. After dinner, Hector did not go out. Victorin and his wife joined them, and they made up a rubber.