But the
worthy little Count wondered now and then why Monsieur Crevel never
joined the party. "Papa is in the country," Celestine shouted, and it
was explained to him that the ex-perfumer was away from home.
This perfect union of all her family made Madame Hulot say to herself,
"This, after all, is the best kind of happiness, and who can deprive
us of it?"
The General, on seeing his favorite Adeline the object of her
husband's attentions, laughed so much about it that the Baron, fearing
to seem ridiculous, transferred his gallantries to his
daughter-in-law, who at these family dinners was always the object of
his flattery and kind care, for he hoped to win Crevel back through
her, and make him forego his resentment.
Any one seeing this domestic scene would have found it hard to believe
that the father was at his wits' end, the mother in despair, the son
anxious beyond words as to his father's future fate, and the daughter
on the point of robbing her cousin of her lover.
At seven o'clock the Baron, seeing his brother, his son, the Baroness,
and Hortense all engaged at whist, went off to applaud his mistress at
the Opera, taking with him Lisbeth Fischer, who lived in the Rue du
Doyenne, and who always made an excuse of the solitude of that
deserted quarter to take herself off as soon as dinner was over.
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