“You, monsieur,” said Victorin, when he found himself alone with Lisbeth, his wife, and his father-in-law, “are about to marry a woman loaded with the spoils of my father; it was she who, in cold blood, brought him down to such depths; a woman who is the son-in-law’s mistress after ruining the father-in-law; who is the cause of constant grief to my sister!--And you fancy that I shall seem to sanction your madness by my presence? I deeply pity you, dear Monsieur Crevel; you have no family feeling; you do not understand the unity of the honor which binds the members of it together. There is no arguing with passion--as I have too much reason to know. The slaves of their passions are as deaf as they are blind. Your daughter Celestine has too strong a sense of her duty to proffer a word of reproach.” “That would, indeed, be a pretty thing!” cried Crevel, trying to cut short this harangue. “Celestine would not be my wife if she made the slightest remonstrance,” the lawyer went on. “But I, at least, may try to stop you before you step over the precipice, especially after giving you ample proof of my disinterestedness. It is not your fortune, it is you that I care about. Nay, to make it quite plain to you, I may add, if it were only to set your mind at ease with regard to your marriage contract, that I am now in a position which leaves me with nothing to wish for--” “Thanks to me!” exclaimed Crevel, whose face was purple. “Thanks to Celestine’s fortune,” replied Victorin. “And if you regret having given to your daughter as a present from yourself, a sum which is not half what her mother left her, I can only say that we are prepared to give it back.” “And do you not know, my respected son-in-law,” said Crevel, striking an attitude, “that under the shelter of my name Madame Marneffe is not called upon to answer for her conduct excepting as my wife--as Madame Crevel?” “That is, no doubt, quite the correct thing,” said the lawyer; “very generous so far as the affections are concerned and the vagaries of passion; but I know of no name, nor law, nor title that can shelter the theft of three hundred thousand francs so meanly wrung from my father!--I tell you plainly, my dear father-in-law, your future wife is unworthy of you, she is false to you, and is madly in love with my brother-in-law, Steinbock, whose debts she had paid.” “It is I who paid them!” “Very good,” said Hulot; “I am glad for Count Steinbock’s sake; he may some day repay the money. But he is loved, much loved, and often--” “Loved!” cried Crevel, whose face showed his utter bewilderment. “It is cowardly, and dirty, and mean, and cheap, to calumniate a woman!--When a man says such things, monsieur, he must bring proof.” “I will bring proof.” “I shall expect it.” “By the day after to-morrow, my dear Monsieur Crevel, I shall be able to tell you the day, the hour, the very minute when I can expose the horrible depravity of your future wife.”