ur
party, my dear Beauchamp? With your talents you would make your fortune
in three or four years."

"I only await one thing before following your advice; that is, a
minister who will hold office for six months. My dear Albert, one word,
for I must give poor Lucien a respite. Do we breakfast or dine? I must
go to the Chamber, for our life is not an idle one."

"You only breakfast; I await two persons, and the instant they arrive we
shall sit down to table."

Chapter 40. The Breakfast.

"And what sort of persons do you expect to breakfast?" said Beauchamp.

"A gentleman, and a diplomatist."

"Then we shall have to wait two hours for the gentleman, and three
for the diplomatist. I shall come back to dessert; keep me some
strawberries, coffee, and cigars. I shall take a cutlet on my way to the
Chamber."

"Do not do anything of the sort; for were the gentleman a Montmorency,
and the diplomatist a Metternich, we will breakfast at eleven; in the
meantime, follow Debray's example, and take a glass of sherry and a
biscuit."

"Be it so; I will stay; I must do something to distract my thoughts."

"You are like Debray, and yet it seems to me that when the minister is
out of spirits, the opposition ought to be joyous."

"Ah, you do not know with what I am threatened. I shall hear this
morning that M. Danglars make a speech at the Chamber of Deputies, and
at his wife's this evening I shall hear the tragedy of a peer of France.
The devil take the constitutional government, and since we had our
choice, as they say, at least, how could we choose that?"

"I understand; you must lay in a stock of hilarity."

"Do not run down M. Danglars' speeches," said Debray; "he votes for you,
for he belongs to the opposition."

"Pardieu, that is exactly the worst of all. I am waiting until you send
him to speak at the Luxembourg, to laugh at my ease."

"My dear friend," said Albert to Beauchamp, "it is plain that the
affairs of Spain are settled, for you are most desperately out of humor
this morning. Recollect that Parisian gossip has spoken of a marriage
between myself and Mlle. Eugenie Danglars; I cannot in conscience,
therefore, let you run down the speeches of a man who will one day say
to me, 'Vicomte, you know I give my daughter two millions.'"

"Ah, this marriage will never take place," said Beauchamp. "The king
has made him a baron, and can make him a peer, but he cannot make him a
gentleman, and the Count of Morcerf i