g mist which the
night will dissipate. To-morrow you will remember the engagement you are
under to your father, and the great future which is before you."

IX. IN THE CHAMBER

The king had opened the Chamber, but Sallenauve was not present, and
his absence was causing a certain sensation in the democratic ranks. The
"National" was particularly disturbed. As a stockholder of the paper,
coming frequently to its office before the election, and even consenting
to write articles for it, how strange that on the eve of the opening of
the session the newly elected deputy should not come near it!

"Now that he is elected," said some of the editorial staff, remarking
on the total disappearance of the man whom they considered they had done
their part to elect, "does monsieur think he can treat us scurvily?
It is getting too much the habit of these lordly deputies to be very
obsequious as long as they are candidates, and throw us away, after they
have climbed the tree, like an old coat."

Less excitable, the editor-in-chief calmed this first ebullition, but
Sallenauve's absence from the royal session seemed to him very strange.

The next day, when the bureaus are constituted, presidents and
secretaries appointed, and committees named, Sallenauve's absence
was still more marked. In the bureau for which his name was drawn,
it happened that the election of its president depended on one vote;
through the absence of the deputy of Arcis, the ministry gained that
advantage and the Opposition lost it. Much discontent was expressed by
the newspapers of the latter party; they did not, as yet, openly attack
the conduct of the defaulter, but they declared that they could not
account for it.

Maxime de Trailles, on the other hand, fully prepared and on the watch,
was waiting only until the routine business of the bureaus and the
appointment of the committees was disposed of to send in the petition of
the Romilly peasant-woman, which had been carefully drawn up by Massol,
under whose clever pen the facts he was employed to make the most
of assumed that degree of probability which barristers contrive to
communicate to their sayings and affirmations. But when Maxime had
the joy of seeing that Sallenauve's absence in itself was creating a
prejudice against him, he went again to Rastignac and asked him if he
did not think it better to hasten the moment of attack, since everything
seemed so favorable.

This time Rastignac was much more