"Yes, my cousin is
still handsome enough to inspire a passion. I should certainly fall in
love with her if I were a man."
"Cut and come again!" exclaimed Crevel. "You are laughing at me.--The
Baron has already found consolation?"
Lisbeth bowed affirmatively.
"He is a lucky man if he can find a second Josepha within twenty-four
hours!" said Crevel. "But I am not altogether surprised, for he told
me one evening at supper that when he was a young man he always had
three mistresses on hand that he might not be left high and dry--the
one he was giving over, the one in possession, and the one he was
courting for a future emergency. He had some smart little work-woman
in reserve, no doubt--in his fish-pond--his _Parc-aux-cerfs_! He is
very Louis XV., is my gentleman. He is in luck to be so handsome!
--However, he is ageing; his face shows it.--He has taken up with
some little milliner?"
"Dear me, no," replied Lisbeth.
"Oh!" cried Crevel, "what would I not do to hinder him from hanging up
his hat! I could not win back Josepha; women of that kind never come
back to their first love.--Besides, it is truly said, such a return is
not love.--But, Cousin Betty, I would pay down fifty thousand francs
--that is to say, I would spend it--to rob that great good-looking
fellow of his mistress, and to show him that a Major with a portly
stomach and a brain made to become Mayor of Paris, though he is a
grandfather, is not to have his mistress tickled away by a poacher
without turning the tables.
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