"We have to regard the
people in the world as tools which we can make use of or let alone,
according as they can serve our turn. Make use of Madame Marneffe now,
my dears, and let her alone by and by. Are you afraid lest Wenceslas,
who worships you, should fall in love with a woman four or five years
older than himself, as yellow as a bundle of field peas, and----?"
"I would far rather pawn my diamonds," said Hortense. "Oh, never go
there, Wenceslas!--It is hell!"
"Hortense is right," said Steinbock, kissing his wife.
"Thank you, my dearest," said Hortense, delighted. "My husband is an
angel, you see, Lisbeth. He does not gamble, he goes nowhere without
me; if he only could stick to work--oh, I should be too happy. Why
take us on show to my father's mistress, a woman who is ruining him
and is the cause of troubles that are killing my heroic mother?"
"My child, that is not where the cause of your father's ruin lies. It
was his singer who ruined him, and then your marriage!" replied her
cousin. "Bless me! why, Madame Marneffe is of the greatest use to him.
However, I must tell no tales."
"You have a good word for everybody, dear Betty--"
Hortense was called into the garden by hearing the child cry; Lisbeth
was left alone with Wenceslas.
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