Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

"Monsieur, be silent and go--or speak to me as you ought."

"Do you know, madame, how Master Hulot and I first made acquaintance? --At our mistresses', madame."

"Oh, monsieur!"

"Yes, madame, at our mistresses'," Crevel repeated in a melodramatic tone, and leaving his position to wave his right hand.

"Well, and what then?" said the Baroness coolly, to Crevel's great amazement.

Such mean seducers cannot understand a great soul.

"I, a widower five years since," Crevel began, in the tone of a man who has a story to tell, "and not wishing to marry again for the sake of the daughter I adore, not choosing either to cultivate any such connection in my own establishment, though I had at the time a very pretty lady-accountant. I set up, 'on her own account,' as they say, a little sempstress of fifteen--really a miracle of beauty, with whom I fell desperately in love. And in fact, madame, I asked an aunt of my own, my mother's sister, whom I sent for from the country, to live with the sweet creature and keep an eye on her, that she might behave as well as might be in this rather--what shall I say--shady?--no, delicate position.

"The child, whose talent for music was striking, had masters, she was educated--I had to give her something to do. Besides, I wished to be at once her father, her benefactor, and--well, out with it--her lover; to kill two birds with one stone, a good action and a sweetheart. For five years I was very happy. The girl had one of those voices that make the fortune of a theatre; I can only describe her by saying that she is a Duprez in petticoats. It cost me two thousand francs a year only to cultivate her talent as a singer. She made me music-mad; I took a box at the opera for her and for my daughter, and went there alternate evenings with Celestine or Josepha."

"What, the famous singer?"