lphine's apartment.

"There is no bed," said Rastignac.

"No, monsieur," she answered, reddening, and pressing his hand. Eugene,
looking at her, understood, young though he yet was, how deeply modesty
is implanted in the heart of a woman who loves.

"You are one of those beings whom we cannot choose but to adore for
ever," he said in her ear. "Yes, the deeper and truer love is, the more
mysterious and closely veiled it should be; I can dare to say so, since
we understand each other so well. No one shall learn our secret."

"Oh! so I am nobody, I suppose," growled the father.

"You know quite well that 'we' means you."

"Ah! that is what I wanted. You will not mind me, will you? I shall go
and come like a good fairy who makes himself felt everywhere without
being seen, shall I not? Eh, Delphinette, Ninette, Dedel--was it not a
good idea of mine to say to you, 'There are some nice rooms to let in
the Rue d'Artois; let us furnish them for him?' And she would not hear
of it! Ah! your happiness has been all my doing. I am the author of your
happiness and of your existence. Fathers must always be giving if they
would be happy themselves; always giving--they would not be fathers
else."

"Was that how it happened?" asked Eugene.

"Yes. She would not listen to me. She was afraid that people would
talk, as if the rubbish that they say about you were to be compared with
happiness! Why, all women dream of doing what she has done----"

Father Goriot found himself without an audience, for Mme. de Nucingen
had led Rastignac into the study; he heard a kiss given and taken, low
though the sound was.

The study was furnished as elegantly as the other rooms, and nothing was
wanting there.

"Have we guessed your wishes rightly?" she asked, as they returned to
the drawing-room for dinner.

"Yes," he said, "only too well, alas! For all this luxury so well
carried out, this realization of pleasant dreams, the elegance that
satisfies all the romantic fancies of youth, appeals to me so strongly
that I cannot but feel that it is my rightful possession, but I cannot
accept it from you, and I am too poor as yet to----"

"Ah! ah! you say me nay already," she said with arch imperiousness,
and a charming little pout of the lips, a woman's way of laughing away
scruples.

But Eugene had submitted so lately to that solemn self-questioning, and
Vautrin's arrest had so plainly shown him the depths of the pit that lay
ready to his feet, t