ow rash it was to confess to an acquaintance with du
Tillet.

"Yes.--Well, monsieur, if you were a mother, would you not quake at the
thought that Madame du Tillet's fate might be your child's? At her age,
and _nee_ de Granville! To have as a rival a woman of fifty and more.
Sooner would I see my daughter dead than give her to a man who had such
a connection with a married woman. A grisette, an actress, you take her
and leave her.--There is no danger, in my opinion, from women of that
stamp; love is their trade, they care for no one, one down and another
to come on!--But a woman who has sinned against duty must hug her sin,
her only excuse is constancy, if such a crime can ever have an excuse.
At least, that is the view I hold of a respectable woman's fall, and
that is what makes it so terrible----"

Instead of looking for the meaning of these speeches, Etienne made a
jest of them at Malaga's, whither he went with his father-in-law elect;
for the notary and the journalist were the best of friends.

Lousteau had already given himself the airs of a person of importance;
his life at last was to have a purpose; he was in luck's way, and in
a few days would be the owner of a delightful little house in the Rue
Saint-Lazare; he was going to be married to a charming woman, he would
have about twenty thousand francs a year, and could give the reins to
his ambition; the young lady loved him, and he would be connected with
several respectable families. In short, he was in full sail on the blue
waters of hope.

Madame Cardot had expressed a wish to see the prints for _Gil Blas_, one
of the illustrated volumes which the French publishers were at that time
bringing out, and Lousteau had taken the first numbers for the lady's
inspection. The lawyer's wife had a scheme of her own, she had borrowed
the book merely to return it; she wanted an excuse for walking in on her
future son-in-law quite unexpectedly. The sight of those bachelor rooms,
which her husband had described as charming, would tell her more, she
thought, as to Lousteau's habits of life than any information she could
pick up. Her sister-in-law, Madame Camusot, who knew nothing of the
fateful secret, was terrified at such a marriage for her niece. Monsieur
Camusot, a Councillor of the Supreme Court, old Camusot's son by his
first marriage, had given his step-mother, who was Cardot's sister, a
far from flattering account of the journalist.

Lousteau, clever as he wa