had seen Nathan's true position. He explained to his wife that
Fieschi's attempt had resulted in attaching to the interests threatened
by this attack on Louis-Philippe a large body of hitherto lukewarm
persons. The newspapers which were non-committal, and did not show their
colors, would lose subscribers; for journalism, like politics, was about
to be simplified by falling into regular lines. If Nathan had put his
whole fortune into that newspaper he would lose it. This judgment,
so apparently just and clear-cut, though brief and given by a man
who fathomed a matter in which he had no interest, alarmed Madame de
Vandenesse.

"Do you take an interest in him?" asked her husband.

"Only as a man whose mind interests me and whose conversation I like."

This reply was made so naturally that the count suspected nothing.

The next day at four o'clock, Marie and Raoul had a long conversation
together, in a low voice, in Madame d'Espard's salon. The countess
expressed fears which Raoul dissipated, only too happy to destroy
by epigrams the conjugal judgment. Nathan had a revenge to take. He
characterized the count as narrow-minded, behind the age, a man who
judged the revolution of July with the eyes of the Restoration, who
would never be willing to admit the triumph of the middle-classes--the
new force of all societies, whether temporary or lasting, but a real
force. Instead of turning his mind to the study of an opinion given
impartially and incidentally by a man well-versed in politics, Raoul
mounted his stilts and stalked about in the purple of his own glory.
Where is the woman who would not have believed his glowing talk sooner
than the cold logic of her husband? Madame de Vandenesse, completely
reassured, returned to her life of little enjoyments, clandestine
pressures of the hand, occasional quarrels,--in short, to her
nourishment of the year before, harmless in itself, but likely to drag a
woman over the border if the man she favors is resolute and impatient
of obstacles. Happily for her, Nathan was not dangerous. Besides, he
was too full of his immediate self-interests to think at this time of
profiting by his love.

But toward the end of December, when the second notes fell due, du
Tillet demanded payment. The rich banker, who said he was embarrassed,
advised Raoul to borrow the money for a short time from a usurer, from
Gigonnet, the providence of all young men who were pressed for money. In
January, he remarked,