pride, nor of pain, nor of joy that
she did not feel. No one could read her soul; she stood there like some
Niobe carved in marble. For a few intimate friends there was a tinge of
satire in her smile; but no scrutiny saw any change in her, nor had she
looked otherwise in the days of the glory of her happiness. The most
callous of her guests admired her as young Rome applauded some gladiator
who could die smiling. It seemed as if society had adorned itself for a
last audience of one of its sovereigns.

"I was afraid that you would not come," she said to Rastignac.

"Madame," he said, in an unsteady voice, taking her speech as a
reproach, "I shall be the last to go, that is why I am here."

"Good," she said, and she took his hand. "You are perhaps the only one
I can trust here among all these. Oh, my friend, when you love, love
a woman whom you are sure that you can love always. Never forsake a
woman."

She took Rastignac's arm, and went towards a sofa in the card-room.

"I want you to go to the Marquis," she said. "Jacques, my footman, will
go with you; he has a letter that you will take. I am asking the Marquis
to give my letters back to me. He will give them all up, I like to think
that. When you have my letters, go up to my room with them. Some one
shall bring me word."

She rose to go to meet the Duchesse de Langeais, her most intimate
friend, who had come like the rest of the world.

Rastignac went. He asked for the Marquis d'Ajuda at the Hotel Rochefide,
feeling certain that the latter would be spending his evening there, and
so it proved. The Marquis went to his own house with Rastignac, and gave
a casket to the student, saying as he did so, "They are all there."

He seemed as if he was about to say something to Eugene, to ask
about the ball, or the Vicomtesse; perhaps he was on the brink of
the confession that, even then, he was in despair, and knew that his
marriage had been a fatal mistake; but a proud gleam shone in his eyes,
and with deplorable courage he kept his noblest feelings a secret.

"Do not even mention my name to her, my dear Eugene." He grasped
Rastignac's hand sadly and affectionately, and turned away from him.
Eugene went back to the Hotel Beauseant, the servant took him to the
Vicomtesse's room. There were signs there of preparations for a journey.
He sat down by the fire, fixed his eyes on the cedar wood casket, and
fell into deep mournful musings. Mme. de Beauseant loomed large in th