"Oh, ho! you want so much to see him! But, as you may suppose, an old maid like Cousin Betty, who had managed to keep a lover for five years, keeps him well hidden.--Now, just let me alone. You see, I have neither cat nor canary, neither dog nor a parrot, and the old Nanny Goat wanted something to pet and tease--so I treated myself to a Polish Count."
"Has he a moustache?"
"As long as that," said Lisbeth, holding up her shuttle filled with gold thread. She always took her lace-work with her, and worked till dinner was served.
"If you ask too many questions, you will be told nothing," she went on. "You are but two-and-twenty, and you chatter more than I do though I am forty-two--not to say forty-three."
"I am listening; I am a wooden image," said Hortense.
"My lover has finished a bronze group ten inches high," Lisbeth went on. "It represents Samson slaying a lion, and he has kept it buried till it is so rusty that you might believe it to be as old as Samson himself. This fine piece is shown at the shop of one of the old curiosity sellers on the Place du Carrousel, near my lodgings. Now, your father knows Monsieur Popinot, the Minister of Commerce and Agriculture, and the Comte de Rastignac, and if he would mention the group to them as a fine antique he had seen by chance! It seems that such things take the fancy of your grand folks, who don't care so much about gold lace, and that my man's fortune would be made if one of them would buy or even look at the wretched piece of metal. The poor fellow is sure that it might be mistaken for old work, and that the rubbish is worth a great deal of money. And then, if one of the ministers should purchase the group, he would go to pay his respects, and prove that he was the maker, and be almost carried in triumph! Oh! he believes he has reached the pinnacle; poor young man, and he is as proud as two newly-made Counts."
"Michael Angelo over again; but, for a lover, he has kept his head on his shoulders!" said Hortense. "And how much does he want for it?"
"Fifteen hundred francs. The dealer will not let it go for less, since he must take his commission."
"Papa is in the King's household just now," said Hortense. "He sees those two ministers every day at the Chamber, and he will do the thing --I undertake that. You will be a rich woman, Madame la Comtesse de Steinbock."
"No, the boy is too lazy; for whole weeks he sits twiddling with bits of red wax, and nothing comes of it. Why, he spends all his days at the Louvre and the Library, looking at prints and sketching things. He is an idler!"
The cousins chatted and giggled; Hortense laughing a forced laugh, for she was invaded by a kind of love which every girl has gone through--the love of the unknown, love in its vaguest form, when every thought is accreted round some form which is suggested by a chance word, as the efflorescence of hoar-frost gathers about a straw that the wind has blown against the window-sill.
For the past ten months she had made a reality of her cousin's imaginary romance, believing, like her mother, that Lisbeth would never marry; and now, within a week, this visionary being had become Comte Wenceslas Steinbock, the dream had a certificate of birth, the wraith had solidified into a young man of thirty. The seal she held in her hand--a sort of Annunciation in which genius shone like an immanent light--had the powers of a talisman. Hortense felt such a surge of happiness, that she almost doubted whether the tale were true; there was a ferment in her blood, and she laughed wildly to deceive her cousin.
"But I think the drawing-room door is open," said Lisbeth; "let us go and see if Monsieur Crevel is gone."
"Mamma has been very much out of spirits these two days. I suppose the marriage under discussion has come to nothing!"
"Oh, it may come on again. He is--I may tell you so much--a Councillor of the Supreme Court. How would you like to be Madame la Presidente?
If Monsieur Crevel has a finger in it, he will tell me about it if I ask him. I shall know by to-morrow if there is any hope."
"Leave the seal with me," said Hortense; "I will not show it--mamma's birthday is not for a month yet; I will give it to you that morning."
"No, no. Give it back to me; it must have a case."
"But I will let papa see it, that he may know what he is talking about to the ministers, for men in authority must be careful what they say," urged the girl.
"Well, do not show it to your mother--that is all I ask; for if she believed I had a lover, she would make game of me."
"I promise."
The cousins reached the drawing-room just as the Baroness turned faint. Her daughter's cry of alarm recalled her to herself. Lisbeth went off to fetch some salts. When she came back, she found the mother and daughter in each other's arms, the Baroness soothing her daughter's fears, and saying:
"It was nothing; a little nervous attack.--There is your father," she added, recognizing the Baron's way of ringing the bell. "Say not a word to him."
Adeline rose and went to meet her husband, intending to take him into the garden and talk to him till dinner should be served of the difficulties about the proposed match, getting him to come to some decision as to the future, and trying to hint at some warning advice.
