Cousin Bette Author:Honoré de Balzac Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE LIFE OF A NOBLE WOMAN. " You will be beautiful ten years hence," said Crevel, resuming his position. " Accept me, and Mademoiselle Hortens... more »e shall marry at once. Hulot gives me the right, as I have just told you, to drive a straight bargain ; he 'll not object. For the last three years I have been saving money; my little distractions have all been economical. I have three hundred thousand francs laid by, outside of my real property; they are yours — " "Leave my house, monsieur, and never let me see you again !" exclaimed Madame Hulot. " If you had not compelled me to ask the meaning of your base conduct in the matter of my daughter's proposed marriage — yes, base," she repeated, in reply to Crevel's gesture ; " why do you allow such animosities to injure a poor girl, a beautiful, innocent creature? — if it were not for this cruel necessity which wrings my mother-s-heart you should never have spoken to me again ; you should never have re-entered these doors. Thiity-two years of wifely honor and loyalty are not destroyed by the attacks of a Monsieur Crevel — " " Ex-perfumer, successor to Cesar Birotteau at the ' Queen of Roses,' rue Saint-Honore-," said Crevel, jokingly; "formerly assistant-mayor, captain of theNational Guard, chevalier of the Legion of honor, precisely like my predecessor." " Monsieur," said the baroness, " if my husband, after twenty years of constancy, has grown weary of his wife, it concerns me, and only me; and observe, monsieur, that he has carefully concealed his infidelities, for I was not aware that he had succeeded you in the heart of Mademoiselle Josepha." " Ha ! " exclaimed Crevel, " only by dint of money, madame; that little nightingale has cost him over a hundred thousand francs in the last two years. Ha! ha ! there's ...« less