shot like a flash of lightning through her soul.

"Yes, his mistress," replied the count. "What is there so surprising in
that?"

"I thought Monsieur Nathan too busy to have a mistress. Do authors have
time to make love?"

"I don't say they love, my dear, but they are forced to _lodge_
somewhere, like other men, and when they haven't a home of their own
they _lodge_ with their mistresses; which may seem to you rather loose,
but it is far more agreeable than lodging in a prison."

Fire was less red than Marie's cheeks.

"Will you have him for a victim? I can help you to terrify him,"
continued the count, not looking at his wife's face. "I'll put you in
the way of proving to him that he is being tricked like a child by your
brother-in-law du Tillet. That wretch is trying to put Nathan in prison
so as to make him ineligible to stand against him in the electoral
college. I know, through a friend of Florine, the exact sum derived
from the sale of her furniture, which she gave to Nathan to found his
newspaper; I know, too, what she sent him out of her summer's harvest
in the departments and in Belgium,--money which has really gone to the
profit of du Tillet, Nucingen, and Massol. All three of them, unknown to
Nathan, have privately sold the paper to the new ministry, so sure are
they of ejecting him."

"Monsieur Nathan is incapable of accepting money from an actress."

"You don't know that class of people, my dear," said the count. "He
would not deny the fact if you asked him."

"I will certainly go to the ball," said the countess.

"You will be very much amused," replied Vandenesse. "With such weapons
in hand you can cut Nathan's complacency to the quick, and you will
also do him a great service. You will put him in a fury; he'll try to
be calm, though inwardly fuming; but, all the same, you will enlighten
a man of talent as to the peril in which he really stands; and you will
also have the satisfaction of laming the horses of the 'juste-milieu' in
their stalls--But you are not listening to me, my dear."

"On the contrary, I am listening intently," she said. "I will tell you
later why I feel desirous to know the truth of all this."

"You shall know it," said Vandenesse. "If you stay masked I will take
you to supper with Nathan and Florine; it would be rather amusing for
a woman of your rank to fool an actress after bewildering the wits of a
clever man about these important facts; you can harness them both to the