"A trick like that is learned at Saint-Lazare," he had reflected as he
got up.

Carlos dismissed the bailiff, paying him liberally, and as he did so,
said to the driver of the cab, "To the Perron, Palais Royal."

"The rascal!" thought Contenson as he heard the order. "There is
something up!" Carlos drove to the Palais Royal at a pace which
precluded all fear of pursuit. He made his way in his own fashion
through the arcades, took another cab on the Place du Chateau d'Eau, and
bid the man go "to the Passage de l'Opera, the end of the Rue Pinon."

A quarter of a hour later he was in the Rue Taitbout. On seeing him,
Esther said:

"Here are the fatal papers."

Carlos took the bills, examined them, and then burned them in the
kitchen fire.

"We have done the trick," he said, showing her three hundred and ten
thousand francs in a roll, which he took out of the pocket of his coat.
"This, and the hundred thousand francs squeezed out by Asie, set us free
to act."

"Oh God, oh God!" cried poor Esther.

"But, you idiot," said the ferocious swindler, "you have only to be
ostensibly Nucingen's mistress, and you can always see Lucien; he is
Nucingen's friend; I do not forbid your being madly in love with him."

Esther saw a glimmer of light in her darkened life; she breathed once
more.

"Europe, my girl," said Carlos, leading the creature into a corner of
the boudoir where no one could overhear a word, "Europe, I am pleased
with you."

Europe held up her head, and looked at this man with an expression which
so completely changed her faded features, that Asie, witnessing the
interview, as she watched her from the door, wondered whether the
interest by which Carlos held Europe might not perhaps be even stronger
than that by which she herself was bound to him.

"That is not all, my child. Four hundred thousand francs are a mere
nothing to me. Paccard will give you an account for some plate,
amounting to thirty thousand francs, on which money has been paid
on account; but our goldsmith, Biddin, has paid money for us. Our
furniture, seized by him, will no doubt be advertised to-morrow. Go
and see Biddin; he lives in the Rue de l'Arbre Sec; he will give you
Mont-de-Piete tickets for ten thousand francs. You understand, Esther
ordered the plate; she had not paid for it, and she put it up the spout.
She will be in danger of a little summons for swindling. So we must pay
the goldsmith the thirty thousand francs, and pay up t