nd no one takes the slightest notice of her; her prettiness is
of the comparative degree illustrated by the saying that among the blind
the one-eyed are kings. Lucien's eyes were now busy comparing Mme. de
Bargeton with other women, just as she herself had contrasted him
with Chatelet on the previous day. And Mme. de Bargeton, on her part,
permitted herself some strange reflections upon her lover. The poet cut
a poor figure notwithstanding his singular beauty. The sleeves of his
jacket were too short; with his ill-cut country gloves and a waistcoat
too scanty for him, he looked prodigiously ridiculous, compared with
the young men in the balcony--"positively pitiable," thought Mme. de
Bargeton. Chatelet, interested in her without presumption, taking care
of her in a manner that revealed a profound passion; Chatelet, elegant,
and as much at home as an actor treading the familiar boards of his
theatre, in two days had recovered all the ground lost in the past six
months.

Ordinary people will not admit that our sentiments towards each other
can totally change in a moment, and yet certain it is, that two lovers
not seldom fly apart even more quickly than they drew together. In Mme.
de Bargeton and in Lucien a process of disenchantment was at work; Paris
was the cause. Life had widened out before the poet's eyes, as society
came to wear a new aspect for Louise. Nothing but an accident now was
needed to sever finally the bond that united them; nor was that blow, so
terrible for Lucien, very long delayed.

Mme. de Bargeton set Lucien down at his inn, and drove home with
Chatelet, to the intense vexation of the luckless lover.

"What will they say about me?" he wondered, as he climbed the stairs to
his dismal room.

"That poor fellow is uncommonly dull," said Chatelet, with a smile, when
the door was closed.

"That is the way with those who have a world of thoughts in their heart
and brain. Men who have so much in them to give out in great works long
dreamed of, profess a certain contempt for conversation, a commerce in
which the intellect spends itself in small change," returned the haughty
Negrepelisse. She still had courage to defend Lucien, but less for
Lucien's sake than for her own.

"I grant it you willingly," replied the Baron, "but we live with human
beings and not with books. There, dear Nais! I see how it is, there is
nothing between you yet, and I am delighted that it is so. If you decide
to bring an interest