What is it, my great pet?
Have it out. Make a clean breast of it to your own little duck!"
And she swept her hair over Crevel's face, while she jestingly pulled
his nose.
"Can a man with a nose like that," she went on, "have any secrets from
his _Vava--lele--ririe_?"
And at the _Vava_ she tweaked his nose to the right; at _lele_ it went
to the left; at _ririe_ she nipped it straight again.
"Well, I have just seen--" Crevel stopped and looked at Madame
Marneffe.
"Valerie, my treasure, promise me on your honor--ours, you know?--not
to repeat a single word of what I tell you."
"Of course, Mayor, we know all about that. One hand up--so--and one
foot--so!" And she put herself in an attitude which, to use Rabelais'
phrase, stripped Crevel bare from his brain to his heels, so quaint
and delicious was the nudity revealed through the light film of lawn.
"I have just seen virtue in despair."
"Can despair possess virtue?" said she, nodding gravely and crossing
her arms like Napoleon.
"It is poor Madame Hulot. She wants two hundred thousand francs, or
else Marshal Hulot and old Johann Fischer will blow their brains out;
and as you, my little Duchess, are partly at the bottom of the
mischief, I am going to patch matters up.
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