a mask,"
replied Bixiou. "La Torpille and Lucien must pass us as they go up the
room again, and I pledge myself to prove that it is she."

"So our friend Lucien has come above water once more," said Nathan,
joining the group. "I thought he had gone back to Angoumois for the rest
of his days. Has he discovered some secret to ruin the English?"

"He has done what you will not do in a hurry," retorted Rastignac; "he
has paid up."

The burly mask nodded in confirmation.

"A man who has sown his wild oats at his age puts himself out of court.
He has no pluck; he puts money in the funds," replied Nathan.

"Oh, that youngster will always be a fine gentleman, and will always
have such lofty notions as will place him far above many men who think
themselves his betters," replied Rastignac.

At this moment journalists, dandies, and idlers were all examining the
charming subject of their bet as horse-dealers examine a horse for sale.
These connoisseurs, grown old in familiarity with every form of Parisian
depravity, all men of superior talent each his own way, equally corrupt,
equally corrupting, all given over to unbridled ambition, accustomed
to assume and to guess everything, had their eyes centered on a masked
woman, a woman whom no one else could identify. They, and certain
habitual frequenters of the opera balls, could alone recognize under the
long shroud of the black domino, the hood and falling ruff which make
the wearer unrecognizable, the rounded form, the individuality of figure
and gait, the sway of the waist, the carriage of the head--the most
intangible trifles to ordinary eyes, but to them the easiest to discern.

In spite of this shapeless wrapper they could watch the most appealing
of dramas, that of a woman inspired by a genuine passion. Were she La
Torpille, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, or Madame de Serizy, on the
lowest or highest rung of the social ladder, this woman was an exquisite
creature, a flash from happy dreams. These old young men, like these
young old men, felt so keen an emotion, that they envied Lucien the
splendid privilege of working such a metamorphosis of a woman into a
goddess. The mask was there as though she had been alone with Lucien;
for that woman the thousand other persons did not exist, nor the evil
and dust-laden atmosphere; no, she moved under the celestial vault of
love, as Raphael's Madonnas under their slender oval glory. She did not
feel herself elbowed; the fire of her gl