Carriage paid. Please to sign my
book."

"Carriage paid!" cried Madame Schontz. "It must have come from
Sancerre."

"Yes, madame," said the porter.

"Your Tenth Muse is a remarkably intelligent woman," said the courtesan,
opening one of the hampers, while Lousteau was writing his name. "I like
a Muse who understands housekeeping, and who can make game pies as well
as blots. And, oh! what beautiful flowers!" she went on, opening the
second hamper. "Why, you could get none finer in Paris!--And here, and
here! A hare, partridges, half a roebuck!--We will ask your friends
and have a famous dinner, for Athalie has a special talent for dressing
venison."

Lousteau wrote to Dinah; but instead of writing from the heart, he
was clever. The letter was all the more insidious; it was like one of
Mirabeau's letters to Sophie. The style of a true lover is transparent.
It is a clear stream which allows the bottom of the heart to be seen
between two banks, bright with the trifles of existence, and covered
with the flowers of the soul that blossom afresh every day, full of
intoxicating beauty--but only for two beings. As soon as a love letter
has any charm for a third reader, it is beyond doubt the product of the
head, not of the heart. But a woman will always be beguiled; she always
believes herself to be the determining cause of this flow of wit.

By the end of December Lousteau had ceased to read Dinah's letters; they
lay in a heap in a drawer of his chest that was never locked, under his
shirts, which they scented.

Then one of those chances came to Lousteau which such bohemians ought
to clutch by every hair. In the middle of December, Madame Schontz,
who took a real interest in Etienne, sent to beg him to call on her one
morning on business.

"My dear fellow, you have a chance of marrying."

"I can marry very often, happily, my dear."

"When I say marrying, I mean marrying well. You have no prejudices: I
need not mince matters. This is the position: A young lady has got
into trouble; her mother knows nothing of even a kiss. Her father is an
honest notary, a man of honor; he has been wise enough to keep it dark.
He wants to get his daughter married within a fortnight, and he will
give her a fortune of a hundred and fifty thousand francs--for he has
three other children; but--and it is not a bad idea--he will add a
hundred thousand francs, under the rose, hand to hand, to cover the
damages. They are an old family of Paris