precious five-franc pieces that remained to him, the money was
well laid out in preserving his coat, boots, and hat; and his

cabman's cry of "Gate, if you please," almost put him in spirits.
A Swiss, in scarlet and gold, appeared, the great door groaned on

its hinges, and Rastignac, with sweet satisfaction, beheld his
equipage pass under the archway and stop before the flight of

steps beneath the awning. The driver, in a blue-and-red
greatcoat, dismounted and let down the step. As Eugene stepped

out of the cab, he heard smothered laughter from the peristyle.
Three or four lackeys were making merry over the festal

appearance of the vehicle. In another moment the law student was
enlightened as to the cause of their hilarity; he felt the full

force of the contrast between his equipage and one of the
smartest broughams in Paris; a coachman, with powdered hair,

seemed to find it difficult to hold a pair of spirited horses,
who stood chafing the bit. In Mme. de Restaud's courtyard, in the

Chaussee d'Antin, he had seen the neat turnout of a young man of
six-and-twenty; in the Faubourg Saint-Germain he found the

luxurious equipage of a man of rank; thirty thousand francs would
not have purchased it.

"Who can be here?" said Eugene to himself. He began to
understand, though somewhat tardily, that he must not expect to

find many women in Paris who were not already appropriated, and
that the capture of one of these queens would be likely to cost

something more than bloodshed. "Confound it all! I expect my
cousin also has her Maxime."

He went up the steps, feeling that he was a blighted being. The
glass door was opened for him; the servants were as solemn as

jackasses under the curry comb. So far, Eugene had only been in
the ballroom on the ground floor of the Hotel Beauseant; the fete

had followed so closely on the invitation, that he had not had
time to call on his cousin, and had therefore never seen Mme. de

Beauseant's apartments; he was about to behold for the first time
a great lady among the wonderful and elegant surroundings that

reveal her character and reflect her daily life. He was the more
curious, because Mme. de Restaud's drawing-room had provided him

with a standard of comparison.
At half-past four the Vicomtesse de Beauseant was visible. Five

minutes earlier she would not have received her cousin, but
Eugene knew nothing of the recognized routine of various houses

in Paris. He was conducted up the wide, white-painted, crimson-
carpeted staircase, between the gilded balusters and masses of

flowering plants, to Mme. de Beauseant's apartments. He did not
know the rumor current about Mme. de Beauseant, one of the

biographies told, with variations, in whispers, every evening in
the salons of Paris.

For three years past her name had been spoken of in connection
with that of one of the most wealthy and distinguished Portuguese

nobles, the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto. It was one of those innocent
liaisons which possess so much charm for the two thus attached to

each other that they find the presence of a third person
intolerable. The Vicomte de Beauseant, therefore, had himself set

an example to the rest of the world by respecting, with as good a
grace as might be, this morganatic union. Any one who came to

call on the Vicomtesse in the early days of this friendship was
sure to find the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto there. As, under the

circumstances, Mme. de Beauseant could not very well shut her
door against these visitors, she gave them such a cold reception,

and showed so much interest in the study of the ceiling, that no
one could fail to understand how much he bored her; and when it

became known in Paris that Mme. de Beauseant was bored by callers
between two and four o'clock, she was left in perfect solitude

during that interval. She went to the Bouffons or to the Opera
with M. de Beauseant and M. d'Ajuda-Pinto; and M. de Beauseant,

like a well-bred man of the world, always left his wife and the
Portuguese as soon as he had installed them. But M. d'Ajuda-Pinto

must marry, and a Mlle. de Rochefide was the young lady. In the
whole fashionable world there was but one person who as yet knew

nothing of the arrangement, and that was Mme. de Beauseant. Some
of her friends had hinted at the possibility, and she had laughed

at them, believing that envy had prompted those ladies to try to
make mischief. And now, though the bans were about to be

published, and although the handsome Portuguese had come that day
to break the news to the Vicomtesse, he had not found courage as

yet to say one word about his treachery. How was it? Nothing is
doubtless more difficult than the notification of an ultimatum of

this kind. There are men who feel more at their ease when they
stand up before another man who threatens their lives with sword

or pistol than in the presence of a woman who, after two hours of
lamentations and reproaches, falls into a dead swoon and requires

salts. At this moment, therefore, M. d'Ajuda-Pinto was on thorns,
and anxious to take his leave. He told himself that in some way

or other the news would reach Mme. de Beauseant; he would write,
it would be much better to do it by letter, and not to utter the

words that should stab her to the heart.
So when the servant announced M. Eugene de Rastignac, the Marquis

d'Ajuda-Pinto trembled with joy. To be sure, a loving woman shows
even more ingenuity in inventing doubts of her lover than in

varying the monotony of his happiness; and when she is about to
be forsaken, she instinctively interprets every gesture as

rapidly as Virgil's courser detected the presence of his
companion by snuffing the breeze. It was impossible, therefore,

that Mme. de Beauseant should not detect that involuntary thrill
of satisfaction; slight though it was, it was appalling in its

artlessness.
Eugene had yet to learn that no one in Paris should present

himself in any house without first making himself acquainted with
the whole history of its owner, and of its owner's wife and

family, so that he may avoid making any of the terrible blunders
which in Poland draw forth the picturesqueexclamation, "Harness

five bullocks to your cart!" probably because you will need them
all to pull you out of the quagmire into which a false step has

plunged you. If, down to the present day, our language has no
name for these conversational disasters, it is probably because

they are believed to be impossible, the publicity given in Paris
to every scandal is so prodigious. After the awkwardincident at

Mme. de Restaud's, no one but Eugene could have reappeared in his
character of bullock-driver in Mme. de Beauseant's drawing-room.

But if Mme. de Restaud and M. de Trailles had found him horribly
in the way, M. d'Ajuda hailed his coming with relief.

"Good-bye," said the Portuguese, hurrying to the door, as Eugene
made his entrance into a dainty little pink-and-gray drawing-

room, where luxury seemed nothing more than good taste.
"Until this evening," said Mme. de Beauseant, turning her head to

give the Marquis a glance. "We are going to the Bouffons, are we
not?"

"I cannot go," he said, with his fingers on the door handle.
Mme. de Beauseant rose and beckoned to him to return. She did not

pay the slightest attention to Eugene, who stood there dazzled by
the sparkling marvels around him; he began to think that this was

some story out of the Arabian Nights made real, and did not know
where to hide himself, when the woman before him seemed to be

unconscious of his existence. The Vicomtesse had raised the
forefinger of her right hand, and gracefully signed to the

Marquis to seat himself beside her. The Marquis felt the
imperious sway of passion in her gesture; he came back towards

her. Eugene watched him, not without a feeling of envy.
"That is the owner of the brougham!" he said to himself. "But is