The slaves of their
passions are as deaf as they are blind. Your daughter Celestine has
too strong a sense of her duty to proffer a word of reproach."
"That would, indeed, be a pretty thing!" cried Crevel, trying to cut
short this harangue.
"Celestine would not be my wife if she made the slightest
remonstrance," the lawyer went on. "But I, at least, may try to stop
you before you step over the precipice, especially after giving you
ample proof of my disinterestedness. It is not your fortune, it is you
that I care about. Nay, to make it quite plain to you, I may add, if
it were only to set your mind at ease with regard to your marriage
contract, that I am now in a position which leaves me with nothing to
wish for--"
"Thanks to me!" exclaimed Crevel, whose face was purple.
"Thanks to Celestine's fortune," replied Victorin. "And if you regret
having given to your daughter as a present from yourself, a sum which
is not half what her mother left her, I can only say that we are
prepared to give it back."
"And do you not know, my respected son-in-law," said Crevel, striking
an attitude, "that under the shelter of my name Madame Marneffe is not
called upon to answer for her conduct excepting as my wife--as Madame
Crevel?"
"That is, no doubt, quite the correct thing," said the lawyer; "very
generous so far as the affections are concerned and the vagaries of
passion; but I know of no name, nor law, nor title that can shelter
the theft of three hundred thousand francs so meanly wrung from my
father!--I tell you plainly, my dear father-in-law, your future wife
is unworthy of you, she is false to you, and is madly in love with my
brother-in-law, Steinbock, whose debts she had paid.
Pages:
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585