ter
their first meeting, the second phase of happiness declared itself.

Madame Schontz then obtained a fine apartment in the rue
Neuve-Saint-Georges. Arthur, who could no longer conceal the amount of
his fortune, gave her splendid furniture, a complete service of plate,
twelve hundred francs a month, a low carriage with one horse,--this,
however, was hired; but he granted a tiger very graciously. Madame
Schontz was not the least grateful for this munificence; she knew the
motive of her Arthur's conduct, and recognized the calculations of the
male _rat_. Sick of living at a restaurant, where the fare is usually
execrable, and where the least little _gourmet_ dinner costs sixty
francs for one, and two hundred francs if you invite three friends,
Rochefide offered Madame Schontz forty francs a day for his dinner and
that of a friend, everything included. Aurelie accepted.

Thus having made him take up all her moral letters of credit, drawn
one by one on Monsieur de Rochefide's comfort, she was listened to with
favor when she asked for five hundred francs more a month for her dress,
in order not to shame her _gros papa_, whose friends all belonged to the
Jockey Club.

"It would be a pretty thing," she said, "if Rastignac, Maxime
de Trailles, d'Esgrignon, La Roche-Hugon, Ronqueroles, Laginski,
Lenoncourt, found you with a sort of Madame Everard. Besides, have
confidence in me, papa, and you'll be the gainer."

In fact, Aurelie contrived to display new virtues in this second phase.
She laid out for herself a house-keeping role for which she claimed much
credit. She made, so she said, both ends meet at the close of the month
on two thousand five hundred francs without a debt,--a thing unheard
of in the faubourg Saint-Germain of the 13th arrondissement,--and
she served dinners infinitely superior to those of Nucingen, at which
exquisite wines were drunk at twelve francs a bottle. Rochefide,
amazed, and delighted to be able to invite his friends to the house with
economy, declared, as he caught her round the waist,--

"She's a treasure!"

Soon after he hired one-third of a box at the Opera for her; next he
took her to first representations. Then he began to consult his Aurelie,
and recognized the excellence of her advice. She let him take the clever
sayings she said about most things for his own, and, these being unknown
to others, raised his reputation as an amusing man. He now acquired the
certainty of being loved truly