as speaking.
De Marsay, only a couple of paces away, put up an eyeglass and looked
from Lucien to Mme. de Bargeton, and then again at Lucien, coupling them
with some mocking thought, cruelly mortifying to both. He scrutinized
them as if they had been a pair of strange animals, and then he smiled.
The smile was like a stab to the distinguished provincial. Felix de
Vandenesse assumed a charitable air. Montriveau looked Lucien through
and through.

"Madame," M. de Canalis answered with a bow, "I will obey you, in spite
of the selfish instinct which prompts us to show a rival no favor; but
you have accustomed us to miracles."

"Very well, do me the pleasure of dining with me on Monday with M. de
Rubempre, and you can talk of matters literary at your ease. I will
try to enlist some of the tyrants of the world of letters and the great
people who protect them, the author of _Ourika_, and one or two young
poets with sound views."

"Mme. la Marquise," said de Marsay, "if you give your support to this
gentleman for his intellect, I will support him for his good looks. I
will give him advice which will put him in a fair way to be the luckiest
dandy in Paris. After that, he may be a poet--if he has a mind."

Mme. de Bargeton thanked her cousin by a grateful glance.

"I did not know that you were jealous of intellect," Montriveau said,
turning to de Marsay; "good fortune is the death of a poet."

"Is that why your lordship is thinking of marriage?" inquired the dandy,
addressing Canalis, and watching Mme. d'Espard to see if the words went
home.

Canalis shrugged his shoulders, and Mme. d'Espard, Mme. de Chaulieu's
niece, began to laugh. Lucien in his new clothes felt as if he were an
Egyptian statue in its narrow sheath; he was ashamed that he had nothing
to say for himself all this while. At length he turned to the Marquise.

"After all your kindness, madame, I am pledged to make no failures," he
said in those soft tones of his.

Chatelet came in as he spoke; he had seen Montriveau, and by hook or
crook snatched at the chance of a good introduction to the Marquise
d'Espard through one of the kings of Paris. He bowed to Mme. de
Bargeton, and begged Mme. d'Espard to pardon him for the liberty he took
in invading her box; he had been separated so long from his traveling
companion! Montriveau and Chatelet met for the first time since they
parted in the desert.

"To part in the desert, and meet again in the opera-house!" sai