t the dinner table.

"Not yet," he answered, "but he is at his last gasp."

The medical student took this for a joke, but it was not a jest. Eugene
had dined in the house that night for the first time for a long while,
and had looked thoughtful during the meal. He had taken his place beside
Mlle. Taillefer, and stayed through the dessert, giving his neighbor an
expressive glance from time to time. A few of the boarders discussed
the walnuts at the table, and others walked about the room, still taking
part in the conversation which had begun among them. People usually went
when they chose; the amount of time that they lingered being determined
by the amount of interest that the conversation possessed for them, or
by the difficulty of the process of digestion. In winter-time the room
was seldom empty before eight o'clock, when the four women had it all to
themselves, and made up for the silence previously imposed upon them by
the preponderating masculine element. This evening Vautrin had noticed
Eugene's abstractedness, and stayed in the room, though he had seemed
to be in a hurry to finish his dinner and go. All through the talk
afterwards he had kept out of the sight of the law student, who quite
believed that Vautrin had left the room. He now took up his position
cunningly in the sitting-room instead of going when the last boarders
went. He had fathomed the young man's thoughts, and felt that a crisis
was at hand. Rastignac was, in fact, in a dilemma, which many another
young man must have known.

Mme. de Nucingen might love him, or might merely be playing with
him, but in either case Rastignac had been made to experience all
the alternations of hope and despair of genuine passion, and all
the diplomatic arts of a Parisienne had been employed on him. After
compromising herself by continually appearing in public with Mme. de
Beauseant's cousin she still hesitated, and would not give him the
lover's privileges which he appeared to enjoy. For a whole month she had
so wrought on his senses, that at last she had made an impression on
his heart. If in the earliest days the student had fancied himself to be
master, Mme. de Nucingen had since become the stronger of the two, for
she had skilfully roused and played upon every instinct, good or bad, in
the two or three men comprised in a young student in Paris. This was not
the result of deep design on her part, nor was she playing a part, for
women are in a manner true to them