"But for me," said Lisbeth, "your father's ruin would be more complete
than it is."
"Come in to mamma," said Hortense; "she is very sharp, and will
suspect something; as our kind Lisbeth says, let us keep everything
from her--let us be cheerful."
"Victorin," said Lisbeth, "you have no notion of what your father will
be brought to by his passion for women. Try to secure some future
resource by getting the Marshal to marry me. Say something about it
this evening; I will leave early on purpose."
Victorin went into the bedroom.
"And you, poor little thing!" said Lisbeth in an undertone to
Hortense, "what can you do?"
"Come to dinner with us to-morrow, and we will talk it over," answered
Hortense. "I do not know which way to turn; you know how hard life is,
and you will advise me."
While the whole family with one consent tried to persuade the Marshal
to marry, and while Lisbeth was making her way home to the Rue
Vanneau, one of those incidents occurred which, in such women as
Madame Marneffe, are a stimulus to vice by compelling them to exert
their energy and every resource of depravity. One fact, at any rate,
must however be acknowledged: life in Paris is too full for vicious
persons to do wrong instinctively and unprovoked; vice is only a
weapon of defence against aggressors--that is all.
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