without
success, to Bixiou, Stidmann, and Leon de Lora, asking them to present
him to Madame Schontz, and allow him to take part in that menageria of
lions of all kinds. Failing in those directions he applied to Couture,
for whose dinners he had so often paid that the late speculator felt
obliged to prove categorically to Madame Schontz that she ought to
acquire such an original, if it was only to make him one of those
elegant footmen without wages whom the mistresses of households employ
to do errands, when servants are lacking.

In the course of three evenings Madame Schontz read Fabien like a book
and said to herself,--

"If Couture does not suit me, I am certain of saddling that one. My
future can go on two legs now."

This queer fellow whom everybody laughed at was really the chosen
one,--chosen, however, with an intention which made such preference
insulting. The choice escaped all public suspicion by its very
improbability. Madame Schontz intoxicated Fabien with smiles given
secretly, with little scenes played on the threshold when she bade
him good-night, if Monsieur de Rochefide stayed behind. She often
made Fabien a third with Arthur in her opera-box and at first
representations; this she excused by saying he had done her such or such
a service and she did not know how else to repay him. Men have a natural
conceit as common to them as to women,--that of being loved exclusively.
Now of all flattering passions there is none more prized than that of
a Madame Schontz, for the man she makes the object of a love she calls
"from the heart," in distinction from another sort of love. A woman like
Madame Schontz, who plays the great lady, and whose intrinsic value is
real, was sure to be an object of pride to Fabien, who fell in love with
her to the point of never presenting himself before her eyes except in
full dress, varnished boots, lemon-kid gloves, embroidered shirt and
frill, waistcoat more or less variegated,--in short, with all the
external symptoms of profound worship.

A month before the conference of the duchess and her confessor, Madame
Schontz had confided the secret of her birth and her real name
to Fabien, who did not in the least understand the motive of the
confidence. A fortnight later, Madame Schontz, surprised at this want of
intelligence, suddenly exclaimed to herself:--

"Heavens! how stupid I am! he expects me to love him for himself."

Accordingly the next day she took the Heir in her _c