complimenting the dress as if it were a book he had published the day

before.
"Yes," said Raoul, differently" target="_blank" title="ad.不关心地；冷淡地">indifferently, "marabouts are very becoming to her;

but she seems wedded to them; she wore them on Saturday," he added, in
a careless tone, as if to repudiate the intimacy Madame d'Espard was

fastening upon him.
"You know the proverb," she replied. "There is no good fete without a

morrow."
In the matter of repartees literary celebrities are often not as quick

as women. Raoul pretended dulness, a last resort for clever men.
"That proverb is true in my case," he said, looking gallantly at the

marquise.
"My dear friend, your speech comes too late; I can't accept it," she

said, laughing. "Don't be so prudish! Come, I know how it was; you
complimented Madame de Vandenesse at the ball on her marabouts and she

has put them on again for your sake. She likes you, and you adore her;
it may be a little rapid, but it is all very natural. If I were

mistaken you wouldn't be twisting your gloves like a man who is
furious at having to sit here with me instead of flying to the box of

his idol. She has obtained," continued Madame d'Espard, glancing at
his person impertinently, "certain sacrifices which you refused to

make to society. She ought to be delighted with her success,--in fact,
I have no doubt she is vain of it; I should be so in her place--

immensely. She was never a woman of any mind, but she may now pass for
one of genius. I am sure you will describe her in one of those

delightful novels you write. And pray don't forget Vandenesse; put him
in to please me. Really, his self-sufficiency is too much. I can't

stand that Jupiter Olympian air of his,--the only mythological
character exempt, they say, from ill-luck."

"Madame," cried Raoul, "you rate my soul very low if you think me
capable of trafficking with my feelings, my affections. Rather than

commit such literary baseness, I would do as they do in England,--put
a rope round a woman's neck and sell her in the market."

"But I know Marie; she would like you to do it."
"She is incapable of liking it," said Raoul, vehemently.

"Oh! then you do know her well?"
Nathan laughed; he, the maker of scenes, to be trapped into playing

one himself!
"Comedy is no longer there," he said, nodding at the stage; "it is

here, in you."
He took his opera-glass and looked about the theatre to recover

countenance.
"You are not angry with me, I hope?" said the marquise, giving him a

sidelong glance. "I should have had your secret somehow. Let us make
peace. Come and see me; I receive every Wednesday, and I am sure the

dear countess will never miss an evening if I let her know you will be
there. So I shall be the gainer. Sometimes she comes between four and

five o'clock, and I'll be kind and add you to the little set of
favorites I admit at that hour."

"Ah!" cried Raoul, "how the world judges; it calls you unkind."
"So I am when I need to be," she replied. "We must defend ourselves.

But your countess I adore; you will be contented with her; she is
charming. Your name will be the first engraved upon her heart with

that infantine joy that makes a lad cut the initials of his love on
the barks of trees."

Raoul was aware of the danger of such conversations, in which a
Parisian woman excels; he feared the marquise would extract some

admission from him which she would instantly turn into ridicule among
her friends. He thereforewithdrew, prudently, as Lady Dudley entered.

"Well?" said the Englishwoman to the marquise, "how far have they
got?"

"They are madly in love; he has just told me so."
"I wish he were uglier," said Lady Dudley, with a viperish look at

Comte Felix. "In other respects he is just what I want him: the son of
a Jew broker who died a bankrupt soon after his marriage; but the

mother was a Catholic, and I am sorry to say she made a Christian of
the boy."

This origin, which Nathan thought carefully concealed, Lady Dudley had
just discovered, and she enjoyed by anticipation the pleasure she

should have in launching some terrible epigram against Vandenesse.
"Heavens! I have just invited him to my house!" cried Madame d'Espard.

"Didn't I receive him at my ball?" replied Lady Dudley. "Some
pleasures, my dear love, are costly."

The news of the mutualattachment between Raoul and Madame de
Vandenesse circulated in the world after this, but not without

exciting denials and incredulity. The countess, however, was defended
by her friends, Lady Dudley, and Mesdames d'Espard and de Manerville,

with an unnecessary warmth that gave a certain color to the calumny.
On the following Wednesday evening Raoul went to Madame d'Espard's,

and was able to exchange a few sentences with Marie, more expressive
by their tones than their ideas. In the midst of the elegant assembly

both found pleasure in those enjoyable sensations given by the voice,
the gestures, the attitude of one beloved. The soul then fastens upon

absolute nothings. No longer do ideas or even language speak, but
things; and these so loudly, that often a man lets another pay the

small attentions--bring a cup of tea, or the sugar to sweeten it--
demanded by the woman he loves, fearful of betraying his emotion to

eyes that seem to see nothing and yet see all. Raoul, however, a man
indifferent to the eyes of the world, betrayed his passion in his

speech and was brilliantly witty. The company listened to the roar of
a discourse inspired by the restraint put upon him; restraint being

that which artists cannot endure. This Rolandic fury, this wit which
slashed down all things, using epigram as its weapon, intoxicated

Marie and amused the circle around them, as the sight of a bull goaded
with banderols amuses the company in a Spanish circus.

"You may kick as you please, but you can't make a solitude about you,"
whispered Blondet.

The words brought Raoul to his senses, and he ceased to exhibit his
irritation to the company. Madame d'Espard came up to offer him a cup

of tea, and said loud enough for Madame de Vandenesse to hear:--
"You are certainly very amusing; come and see me sometimes at four

o'clock."
The word "amusing" offended Raoul, though it was used as the ground of

an invitation. Blondet took pity on him.
"My dear fellow," he said, taking him aside into a corner, "you are

behaving in society as if you were at Florine's. Here no one shows
annoyance, or spouts long articles; they say a few words now and then,

they look their calmest when most desirous of flinging others out of
the window; they sneer softly, they pretend not to think of the woman

they adore, and they are careful not to roll like a donkey on the
high-road. In society, my good Raoul, conventions rule love. Either

carry off Madame de Vandenesse, or show yourself a gentleman. As it
is, you are playing the lover in one of your own books."

Nathan listened with his head lowered; he was like a lion caught in a
toil.

"I'll never set foot in this house again," he cried. "That papier-
mache marquise sells her tea too dear. She thinks me amusing! I

understand now why Saint-Just wanted to guillotine this whole class of
people."

"You'll be back here to-morrow."
Blondet was right. Passions are as mean as they are cruel. The next

day after long hesitation between "I'll go--I'll not go," Raoul left
his new partners in the midst of an important discussion and rushed to

Madame d'Espard's house in the faubourg Saint-Honore. Beholding
Rastignac's elegant cabriolet enter the court-yard while he was paying

his cab at the gate, Nathan's vanity was stung; he resolved to have a
cabriolet himself, and its accompanying tiger, too. The carriage of

the countess was in the court-yard, and the sight of it swelled
Raoul's heart with joy. Marie was advancing under the pressure of her

desires with the regularity of the hands of a clock obeying the
mainspring. He found her sitting at the corner of the fireplace in the