In the course of three years ambition had altered Crevel’s pretensions. Like all great artists, he had come to his second manner. In the great world, when he went to the Prince de Wissembourg’s, to the Prefecture, to Comte Popinot’s, and the like, he held his hat in his hand in an airy manner taught him by Valerie, and he inserted the thumb of the other hand in the armhole of his waistcoat with a knowing air, and a simpering face and expression. This new grace of attitude was due to the satirical inventiveness of Valerie, who, under pretence of rejuvenating her mayor, had given him an added touch of the ridiculous. “I begged you to come, my dear kind Monsieur Crevel,” said the Baroness in a husky voice, “on a matter of the greatest importance--” “I can guess what it is, madame,” said Crevel, with a knowing air, “but what you would ask is impossible.--Oh, I am not a brutal father, a man--to use Napoleon’s words--set hard and fast on sheer avarice. Listen to me, fair lady. If my children were ruining themselves for their own benefit, I would help them out of the scrape; but as for backing your husband, madame? It is like trying to fill the vat of the Danaides! Their house is mortgaged for three hundred thousand francs for an incorrigible father! Why, they have nothing left, poor wretches! And they have no fun for their money. All they have to live upon is what Victorin may make in Court. He must wag his tongue more, must monsieur your son! And he was to have been a Minister, that learned youth! Our hope and pride. A pretty pilot, who runs aground like a land-lubber; for if he had borrowed to enable him to get on, if he had run into debt for feasting Deputies, winning votes, and increasing his influence, I should be the first to say, ‘Here is my purse--dip your hand in, my friend!’ But when it comes of paying for papa’s folly--folly I warned you of!--Ah! his father has deprived him of every chance of power.--It is I who shall be Minister!” “Alas, my dear Crevel, it has nothing to do with the children, poor devoted souls!--If your heart is closed to Victorin and Celestine, I shall love them so much that perhaps I may soften the bitterness of their souls caused by your anger. You are punishing your children for a good action!” “Yes, for a good action badly done! That is half a crime,” said Crevel, much pleased with his epigram. “Doing good, my dear Crevel, does not mean sparing money out of a purse that is bursting with it; it means enduring privations to be generous, suffering for liberality! It is being prepared for ingratitude! Heaven does not see the charity that costs us nothing--” “Saints, madame, may if they please go to the workhouse; they know that it is for them the door of heaven. For my part, I am worldly-minded; I fear God, but yet more I fear the hell of poverty. To be destitute is the last depth of misfortune in society as now constituted. I am a man of my time; I respect money.”