About eleven o’clock just as the party was at its height, for the drawing-room was full of people. Valérie drew Hector aside on to a corner of her sofa.
‘My dear old thing,’ she whispered to him, ‘your daughter is so angry at Wenceslas’s coming here that she’s walked out on him. She’s a headstrong girl, is Hortense. Ask Wenceslas to show you the letter the little fool wrote. This separation of two lovers, of which I’m supposed to be the cause, can do me untold harm, for that’s the way virtuous women attack each other. It’s scandalous to play the victim in order to cast the blame on a woman whose only fault is to run a pleasant house. If you love me, you will clear me of blame by sending the two turtle-doves back to their home. Anyway, I’m not at all keen to receive your son-in- law. It was you who brought him here; take him away again. If you have any authority in your family, it seems to me that you could very well require your wife to bring about a reconciliation. Tell the good old lady, from me, that if I’m wrongly blamed for causing a rift between a young couple and breaking up a family, and of taking both the father and the son-in-law, I’ll live up to my reputation by causing them trouble in my own way. There’s Lisbeth talking of leaving me. She prefers her family to me. I can’t blame her. She told me she’ll only stay here if the young people make it up. That’ll put us in a fine mess. Expenses here will be tripled.’
‘Oh, as for that,’ said the Baron, on hearing of his daughter’s scandalous behaviour, ‘I’ll put that right.’
‘And there’s something else,’ continued Valérie, ‘What about Coquet’s post?’
‘That’s more difficult, not to say impossible,’ replied Hector, lowering his eyes.
‘Impossible, my dear Hector?’ Madame Marneffe said in a low voice to the Baron. ‘But you don’t know what extreme lengths Marneffe will go to. I’m in his power. He’s immoral in his own interests, like most men, but he’s extremely vindictive, like all petty-minded and impotent men. In the situation you’ve placed me in, I’m at his mercy. Obliged as I am to patch things up with him for a few days, he’s capable of never leaving my room again.’
Hulot started violently.
‘He was leaving me alone on condition that he was made an office-manager. It’s monstrous, but it’s logical.’
‘Valérie, do you love me?’
‘To ask me that question in the condition I’m in, my dear, is an insult worthy of a lackey.’
‘Well, if I try, only try, to ask the Marshal for a post for Marneffe, that would be the end of me and Marneffe would be dismissed.’
‘I thought you and the Prince were intimate friends.’
‘Indeed we are; he’s given me ample proof of it. But, my dear, above the Marshal there are others, the whole Council of Ministers, for example. With a little time and manoêuvring, we’ll get there. To succeed, we must wait for the moment when I’ve been asked to render some service. Then I’ll be able to say, “one good turn deserves another”.’
‘If I tell Marneffe that, my dear Hector, he’ll take it out of us in some way or other. Look, tell him yourself he’s got to wait. I won’t take on that task. Oh, I know what will happen to me. He knows how to punish me. He won’t leave my room. Don’t forget the twelve hundred francs’ annuity for the child.’
Feeling his pleasure threatened, Hulot took Monsieur Marneffe aside. For the first time he dropped the haughty tone he had maintained hitherto, so appalled was he at the prospect of that moribund creature in such a pretty woman’s room.
‘Marneffe, my dear fellow,’ he said, ‘we talked about you today. But you can’t be promoted office-manager just yet. We need time.’
‘I’ll be promoted, Monsieur le Baron,’ Marneffe replied curtly.
‘But, my dear fellow …’
‘I’ll be promoted, Monsieur le Baron,’ Marneffe repeated coldly, looking first at the Baron and then at Valérie. ‘You’ve made it necessary for my wife to be reconciled to me and I’ll keep her; for, my dear fellow, she’s charming,’ he added, with horrible irony. ‘I’m the master here, more so than you are at the Ministry.’
The Baron felt a pain in his heart like a raging toothache and he could barely restrain his tears.
During this short scene, Valérie was quietly informing Henri Montes of Marneffe’s supposed intention and so she got rid of him for a time.
Of the faithful four, only Crevel the owner of the cosy little house, was exempted from this measure. His face accordingly wore an air of truly insolent beatitude, in spite of reproofs which Valérie tried to convey to him by frowns and meaningful looks. But his radiant paternity was beaming in every feature.
At a whispered word of reproach from Valérie, he grasped her hand and said:
‘Tomorrow, my duchess, you shall have your little house. The sale will be finalized tomorrow.’
‘And the furniture?’ she asked, smiling.
‘I have a thousand shares in the Versailles left-bank railway. I bought them at a hundred and twenty-five francs, and they’ll go up to three hundred because of the amalgamation of the two lines—that’s a secret I was let into. You’ll have furniture fit for a queen! But you’ll be only mine from then on, won’t you?’
‘Yes, my portly Mayor,’ said this middle-class Madame de Merteuil* with a smile, ‘but behave yourself. Respect the future Madame Crevel.’
‘My dear cousin,’ Lisbeth was saying to the Baron, ‘I’ll be at Adeline’s early tomorrow, for, you understand, I can’t in all decency remain here. I’ll go and keep house for your brother the Marshal.’
‘I’m going home tonight,’ said the Baron.
‘Well, I’ll come to lunch tomorrow,’ replied Lisbeth with a smile.