h of a d'Uxelles and a
Cadignan for that; but, to my knowledge, she has not only spent her
own fortune, which was very considerable, but she has made others
waste millions. How? why? by what means? No one knows; she doesn't
know herself. I myself saw her swallow up, some thirteen years ago, the
entire fortune of a charming young fellow, and that of an old notary, in
twenty months."

"Thirteen years ago!" exclaimed d'Arthez,--"why, how old is she now?"

"Didn't you see, at dinner," replied Rastignac, laughing, "her son, the
Duc de Maufrigneuse. That young man is nineteen years old; nineteen and
seventeen make--"

"Thirty-six!" cried the amazed author. "I gave her twenty."

"She'll accept them," said Rastignac; "but don't be uneasy, she will
always be twenty to you. You are about to enter the most fantastic
of worlds. Good-night, here you are at home," said the baron, as they
entered the rue de Bellefond, where d'Arthez lived in a pretty little
house of his own. "We shall meet at Mademoiselle des Touches's in the
course of the week."

CHAPTER III. THE PRINCESS GOES TO WORK

D'Arthez allowed love to enter his heart after the manner of my Uncle
Toby, without making the slightest resistance; he proceeded by adoration
without criticism, and by exclusive admiration. The princess, that noble
creature, one of the most remarkable creations of our monstrous Paris,
where all things are possible, good as well as evil, became--whatever
vulgarity the course of time may have given to the expression--the angel
of his dreams. To fully understand the sudden transformation of this
illustrious author, it is necessary to realize the simplicity that
constant work and solitude leave in the heart; all that love--reduced
to a mere need, and now repugnant, beside an ignoble woman--excites of
regret and longings for diviner sentiments in the higher regions of the
soul. D'Arthez was, indeed, the child, the boy that Madame de Cadignan
had recognized. An illumination something like his own had taken place
in the beautiful Diane. At last she had met that superior man whom all
women desire and seek, if only to make a plaything of him,--that power
which they consent to obey, if only for the pleasure of subduing it;
at last she had found the grandeurs of the intellect united with
the simplicity of a heart all new to love; and she saw, with untold
happiness, that these merits were contained in a form that pleased her.
She thought d'Arthez h