gh degree, appeared before the poet as Mme. de Bargeton had
appeared to him in Angouleme. His fickle nature prompted him to desire
influence in that lofty sphere at once, and the surest way to secure
such influence was to possess the woman who exerted it, and then
everything would be his. He had succeeded at Angouleme, why should he
not succeed in Paris?

Involuntarily, and despite the novel counter fascination of the stage,
his eyes turned to the Celimene in her splendor; he glanced furtively at
her every moment; the longer he looked, the more he desired to look at
her. Mme. de Bargeton caught the gleam in Lucien's eyes, and saw that
he found the Marquise more interesting than the opera. If Lucien had
forsaken her for the fifty daughters of Danaus, she could have borne his
desertion with equanimity; but another glance--bolder, more ardent and
unmistakable than any before--revealed the state of Lucien's feelings.
She grew jealous, but not so much for the future as for the past.

"He never gave me such a look," she thought. "Dear me! Chatelet was
right!"

Then she saw that she had made a mistake; and when a woman once begins
to repent of her weaknesses, she sponges out the whole past. Every
one of Lucien's glances roused her indignation, but to all outward
appearance she was calm. De Marsay came back in the interval, bringing
M. de Listomere with him; and that serious person and the young coxcomb
soon informed the Marquise that the wedding guest in his holiday suit,
whom she had the bad luck to have in her box, had as much right to the
appellation of Rubempre as a Jew to a baptismal name. Lucien's father
was an apothecary named Chardon. M. de Rastignac, who knew all about
Angouleme, had set several boxes laughing already at the mummy whom the
Marquise styled her cousin, and at the Marquise's forethought in having
an apothecary at hand to sustain an artificial life with drugs. In
short, de Marsay brought a selection from the thousand-and-one jokes
made by Parisians on the spur of the moment, and no sooner uttered than
forgotten. Chatelet was at the back of it all, and the real author of
this Punic faith.

Mme. d'Espard turned to Mme. de Bargeton, put up her fan, and said, "My
dear, tell me if your protege's name is really M. de Rubempre?"

"He has assumed his mother's name," said Anais, uneasily.

"But who was his father?"

"His father's name was Chardon."

"And what was this Chardon?"

"A druggist."

"My dea