he
Indies. But in spite of a friendship dating from the d'Aldriggers'
first appearance at the Nucingens', Ferdinand did not marry Malvina.
Our ferocious friend was not apparently jealous of Desroches, who paid
assiduous court to the young lady; Desroches wanted to pay off the rest
of the purchase-money due for his connection; Malvina could not well
have less than fifty thousand crowns, he thought, and so the lawyer
was fain to play the lover. Malvina, deeply humiliated as she was by
du Tillet's carelessness, loved him too well to shut the door upon
him. With her, an enthusiastic, highly-wrought, sensitive girl, love
sometimes got the better of pride, and pride again overcame wounded
love. Our friend Ferdinand, cool and self-possessed, accepted her
tenderness, and breathed the atmosphere with the quiet enjoyment of a
tiger licking the blood that dyes his throat. He would come to make sure
of it with new proofs; he never allowed two days to pass without a visit
to the Rue Joubert.

"At that time the rascal possessed something like eighteen hundred
thousand francs; money must have weighted very little with him in the
question of marriage; and he had not merely been proof against Malvina,
he had resisted the Barons de Nucingen and de Rastignac; though both of
them had set him galloping at the rate of seventy-five leagues a day,
with outriders, regardless of expense, through mazes of their cunning
devices--and with never a clue of thread.

"Godefroid could not refrain from saying a word to his future
sister-in-law as to her ridiculous position between a banker and an
attorney.

"'You mean to read me a lecture on the subject of Ferdinand,' she said
frankly, 'to know the secret between us. Dear Godefroid, never mention
this again. Ferdinand's birth, antecedents, and fortune count for
nothing in this, so you may think it is something extraordinary.' A few
days afterwards, however, Malvina took Godefroid apart to say, 'I do
not think that Desroches is sincere' (such is the instinct of love);
'he would like to marry me, and he is paying court to some tradesman's
daughter as well. I should very much like to know whether I am a second
shift, and whether marriage is a matter of money with him.' The fact was
that Desroches, deep as he was, could not make out du Tillet, and
was afraid that he might marry Malvina. So the fellow had secured
his retreat. His position was intolerable, he was scarcely paying his
expenses and interest o