Need must!" said Nucingen.

"And you have the best of the bargain," said Asie. "Women have been sold
much dearer than this one to you--relatively speaking. There are women
and women! De Marsay paid sixty thousand francs for Coralie, who is dead
now. The woman you want cost a hundred thousand francs when new; but to
you, you old goat, it is a matter of agreement."

"But vere is she?"

"Ah! you shall see. I am like you--a gift for a gift! Oh, my good man,
your adored one has been extravagant. These girls know no moderation.
Your princess is at this moment what we call a fly by night----"

"A fly----?"

"Come, come, don't play the simpleton.--Louchard is at her heels, and
I--I--have lent her fifty thousand francs----"

"Twenty-fife say!" cried the banker.

"Well, of course, twenty-five for fifty, that is only natural," replied
Asie. "To do the woman justice, she is honesty itself. She had nothing
left but herself, and says she to me: 'My good Madame Saint-Esteve,
the bailiffs are after me; no one can help me but you. Give me twenty
thousand francs. I will pledge my heart to you.' Oh, she has a sweet
heart; no one but me knows where it lies. Any folly on my part, and I
should lose my twenty thousand francs.

"Formerly she lived in the Rue Taitbout. Before leaving--(her furniture
was seized for costs--those rascally bailiffs--You know them, you who
are one of the great men on the Bourse)--well, before leaving, she is
no fool, she let her rooms for two months to an Englishwoman, a splendid
creature who had a little thingummy--Rubempre--for a lover, and he was
so jealous that he only let her go out at night. But as the furniture is
to be seized, the Englishwoman has cut her stick, all the more because
she cost too much for a little whipper-snapper like Lucien."

"You cry up de goots," said Nucingen.

"Naturally," said Asie. "I lend to the beauties; and it pays, for you
get two commissions for one job."

Asie was amusing herself by caricaturing the manners of a class of women
who are even greedier but more wheedling and mealy-mouthed than the
Malay woman, and who put a gloss of the best motives on the trade they
ply. Asie affected to have lost all her illusions, five lovers, and some
children, and to have submitted to be robbed by everybody in spite of
her experience. From time to time she exhibited some pawn-tickets,
to prove how much bad luck there was in her line of business. She
represented herself as pinched a