"Yes, and No," replied Madame Hulot. "I am rich for dear little girls like you when they are willing to be taught their duties as Christians by a priest, and to walk in the right way."
"What way is that?" said Atala; "I walk on my two feet."
"The way of virtue."
Atala looked at the Baroness with a crafty smile.
"Look at madame," said the Baroness, pointing to the stove-fitter's wife, "she has been quite happy because she was received into the bosom of the Church. You married like the beasts that perish."
"I?" said Atala. "Why, if you will give me as much as Daddy Vyder gives me, I shall be quite happy unmarried again. It is a grind.--Do you know what it is to--?"
"But when once you are united to a man as you are," the Baroness put in, "virtue requires you to remain faithful to him."
"Till he dies," said Atala, with a knowing flash. "I shall not have to wait long. If you only knew how Daddy Vyder coughs and blows.--Poof, poof," and she imitated the old man.
"Virtue and morality require that the Church, representing God, and the Mayor, representing the law, should consecrate your marriage,"
Madame Hulot went on. "Look at madame; she is legally married--"
"Will it make it more amusing?" asked the girl.
"You will be happier," said the Baroness, "for no one could then blame you. You would satisfy God! Ask her if she was married without the sacrament of marriage!"
Atala looked at the Italian.
"How is she any better than I am?" she asked. "I am prettier than she is."
"Yes, but I am an honest woman," said the wife, "and you may be called by a bad name."
"How can you expect God to protect you if you trample every law, human and divine, under foot?" said the Baroness. "Don't you know that God has Paradise in store for those who obey the injunctions of His Church?"
"What is there in Paradise? Are there playhouses?"
"Paradise!" said Adeline, "is every joy you can conceive of. It is full of angels with white wings. You see God in all His glory, you share His power, you are happy for every minute of eternity!"
Atala listened to the lady as she might have listened to music; but Adeline, seeing that she was incapable of understanding her, thought she had better take another line of action and speak to the old man.
"Go home, then, my child, and I will go to see Monsieur Vyder. Is he a Frenchman?"
"He is an Alsatian, madame. But he will be quite rich soon. If you would pay what he owes to that vile Samanon, he would give you back your money, for in a few months he will be getting six thousand francs a year, he says, and we are to go to live in the country a long way off, in the Vosges."
At the word /Vosges/ the Baroness sat lost in reverie. It called up the vision of her native village. She was roused from her melancholy meditation by the entrance of the stove-fitter, who came to assure her of his prosperity.
"In a year's time, madame, I can repay the money you lent us, for it is God's money, the money of the poor and wretched. If ever I make a fortune, come to me for what you want, and I will render through you the help to others which you first brought us."
"Just now," said Madame Hulot, "I do not need your money, but I ask your assistance in a good work. I have just seen that little Judici, who is living with an old man, and I mean to see them regularly and legally married."
"Ah! old Vyder; he is a very worthy old fellow, with plenty of good sense. The poor old man has already made friends in the neighborhood, though he has been here but two months. He keeps my accounts for me.
He is, I believe, a brave Colonel who served the Emperor well. And how he adores Napoleon!--He has some orders, but he never wears them. He is waiting till he is straight again, for he is in debt, poor old boy!
In fact, I believe he is hiding, threatened by the law--"
"Tell him that I will pay his debts if he will marry the child."
"Oh, that will soon be settled.--Suppose you were to see him, madame; it is not two steps away, in the Passage du Soleil."
So the lady and the stove-fitter went out.
"This way, madame," said the man, turning down the Rue de la Pepiniere.
The alley runs, in fact, from the bottom of this street through to the Rue du Rocher. Halfway down this passage, recently opened through, where the shops let at a very low rent, the Baroness saw on a window, screened up to a height with a green, gauze curtain, which excluded the prying eyes of the passer-by, the words:
"ECRIVAIN PUBLIC"; and on the door the announcement:
BUSINESS TRANSACTED.
/Petitions Drawn Up, Accounts Audited, Etc./
/With Secrecy and Dispatch./
The shop was like one of those little offices where travelers by omnibus wait the vehicles to take them on to their destination. A private staircase led up, no doubt, to the living-rooms on the entresol which were let with the shop. Madame Hulot saw a dirty writing-table of some light wood, some letter-boxes, and a wretched second-hand chair. A cap with a peak and a greasy green shade for the eyes suggested either precautions for disguise, or weak eyes, which was not unlikely in an old man.
"He is upstairs," said the stove-fitter. "I will go up and tell him to come down."
Adeline lowered her veil and took a seat. A heavy step made the narrow stairs creak, and Adeline could not restrain a piercing cry when she saw her husband, Baron Hulot, in a gray knitted jersey, old gray flannel trousers, and slippers.
"What is your business, madame?" said Hulot, with a flourish.
She rose, seized Hulot by the arm, and said in a voice hoarse with emotion:
"At last--I have found you!"
"Adeline!" exclaimed the Baron in bewilderment, and he locked the shop door. "Joseph, go out the back way," he added to the stove-fitter.
"My dear!" she said, forgetting everything in her excessive joy, "you can come home to us all; we are rich. Your son draws a hundred and sixty thousand francs a year! Your pension is released; there are fifteen thousand francs of arrears you can get on showing that you are alive. Valerie is dead, and left you three hundred thousand francs.
