"I shall die
a maid."
"Two old men lovers! Really, I am ashamed sometimes! If my poor mother
could see me."
"You are mistaking me for Crevel!" said Lisbeth.
"Tell me, my little Betty, do you not despise me?"
"Oh! if I had but been pretty, what adventures I would have had!"
cried Lisbeth. "That is your justification."
"But you would have acted only at the dictates of your heart," said
Madame Marneffe, with a sigh.
"Pooh! Marneffe is a dead man they have forgotten to bury," replied
Lisbeth. "The Baron is as good as your husband; Crevel is your adorer;
it seems to me that you are quite in order--like every other married
woman."
"No, it is not that, dear, adorable thing; that is not where the shoe
pinches; you do not choose to understand."
"Yes, I do," said Lisbeth. "The unexpressed factor is part of my
revenge; what can I do? I am working it out."
"I love Wenceslas so that I am positively growing thin, and I can
never see him," said Valerie, throwing up her arms. "Hulot asks him to
dinner, and my artist declines. He does not know that I idolize him,
the wretch! What is his wife after all? Fine flesh! Yes, she is
handsome, but I--I know myself--I am worse!"
"Be quite easy, my child, he will come," said Lisbeth, in the tone of
a nurse to an impatient child.
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