Honore de Balzac: Cousin Betty

1. PART I: THE PRODIGAL FATHER (continued)

The individual addressed as Roger looked at Hulot, took his hand, and pressed it.

"We are such old friends, that I am bound to give you warning. If you want to keep your place, you must make a bed for yourself, and instead of asking the Marshal to give Coquet's place to Marneffe, in your place I would beg him to use his influence to reserve a seat for me on the General Council of State; there you may die in peace, and, like the beaver, abandon all else to the pursuers."

"What, do you think the Marshal would forget--"

"The Marshal has already taken your part so warmly at a General Meeting of the Ministers, that you will not now be turned out; but it was seriously discussed! So give them no excuse. I can say no more. At this moment you may make your own terms; you may sit on the Council of State and be made a Peer of the Chamber. If you delay too long, if you give any one a hold against you, I can answer for nothing.--Now, am I to go?"

"Wait a little. I will see the Marshal," replied Hulot, "and I will send my brother to see which way the wind blows at headquarters."

The humor in which the Baron came back to Madame Marneffe's may be imagined; he had almost forgotten his fatherhood, for Roger had taken the part of a true and kind friend in explaining the position. At the same time Valerie's influence was so great that, by the middle of dinner, the Baron was tuned up to the pitch, and was all the more cheerful for having unwonted anxieties to conceal; but the hapless man was not yet aware that in the course of that evening he would find himself in a cleft stick, between his happiness and the danger pointed out by his friend--compelled, in short, to choose between Madame Marneffe and his official position.

At eleven o'clock, when the evening was at its gayest, for the room was full of company, Valerie drew Hector into a corner of her sofa.