ying his coffee-cup, sip by sip.

"What for?" inquired the older man, as he put on his large-brimmed hat
and took up the sword-cane that he was wont to twirl like a man who will
face three or four footpads without flinching.

"I will repay you in a minute," returned Eugene. He unsealed one of the
bags as he spoke, counted out a hundred and forty francs, and pushed
them towards Mme. Vauquer. "Short reckonings make good friends" he
added, turning to the widow; "that clears our accounts till the end of
the year. Can you give me change for a five-franc piece?"

"Good friends make short reckonings," echoed Poiret, with a glance at
Vautrin.

"Here is your franc," said Rastignac, holding out the coin to the sphinx
in the black wig.

"Any one might think that you were afraid to owe me a trifle," exclaimed
this latter, with a searching glance that seemed to read the young man's
inmost thoughts; there was a satirical and cynical smile on Vautrin's
face such as Eugene had seen scores of times already; every time he saw
it, it exasperated him almost beyond endurance.

"Well... so I am," he answered. He held both the bags in his hand, and
had risen to go up to his room.

Vautrin made as if he were going out through the sitting-room, and the
student turned to go through the second door that opened into the square
lobby at the foot of the staircase.

"Do you know, Monsieur le Marquis de Rastignacorama, that what you were
saying just now was not exactly polite?" Vautrin remarked, as he rattled
his sword-cane across the panels of the sitting-room door, and came up
to the student.

Rastignac looked coolly at Vautrin, drew him to the foot of the
staircase, and shut the dining-room door. They were standing in the
little square lobby between the kitchen and the dining-room; the place
was lighted by an iron-barred fanlight above a door that gave access
into the garden. Sylvie came out of her kitchen, and Eugene chose that
moment to say:

"_Monsieur_ Vautrin, I am not a marquis, and my name is not
Rastignacorama."

"They will fight," said Mlle. Michonneau, in an indifferent tone.

"Fight!" echoed Poiret.

"Not they," replied Mme. Vauquer, lovingly fingering her pile of coins.

"But there they are under the lime-trees," cried Mlle. Victorine, who
had risen so that she might see out into the garden. "Poor young man! he
was in the right, after all."

"We must go upstairs, my pet," said Mme. Couture; "it is no business of
ours