LITMIR.BIZ

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will not deceive me. I have had my share of living. Since the day I first saw you, in 1824, till this day, I have known more happiness than can be put into the lives of ten fortunate wives. So take me for what I am—a woman as strong as I am weak. Say ‘I am going to be married.’ I will ask no more of you than a fond farewell, and you shall never hear of me again.”

      There was a moment’s silence after this explanation as sincere as her action and tone were guileless.

      “Is it that you are going to be married?” she repeated, looking into Lucien’s blue eyes with one of her fascinating glances, as brilliant as a steel blade.

      “We have been toiling at my marriage for eighteen months past, and it is not yet settled,” replied Lucien. “I do not know when it can be settled; but it is not in question now, child!—It is the Abbe, I, you.—We are in real peril. Nucingen saw you——”

      “Yes, in the wood at Vincennes,” said she. “Did he recognize me?”

      “No,” said Lucien. “But he has fallen so desperately in love with you, that he would sacrifice his coffers. After dinner, when he was describing how he had met you, I was so foolish as to smile involuntarily, and most imprudently, for I live in a world like a savage surrounded by the traps of a hostile tribe. Carlos, who spares me the pains of thinking, regards the position as dangerous, and he has undertaken to pay Nucingen out if the Baron takes it into his head to spy on us; and he is quite capable of it; he spoke to me of the incapacity of the police. You have lighted a flame in an old chimney choked with soot.”

      “And what does your Spaniard propose to do?” asked Esther very softly.

      “I do not know in the least,” said Lucien; “he told me I might sleep soundly and leave it to him;”—but he dared not look at Esther.

      “If that is the case, I will obey him with the dog-like submission I profess,” said Esther, putting her hand through Lucien’s arm and leading him into her bedroom, saying, “At any rate, I hope you dined well, my Lulu, at that detestable Baron’s?”

      “Asie’s cooking prevents my ever thinking a dinner good, however famous the chef may be, where I happen to dine. However, Careme did the dinner to-night, as he does every Sunday.”

      Lucien involuntarily compared Esther with Clotilde. The mistress was so beautiful, so unfailingly charming, that she had as yet kept at arm’s length the monster who devours the most perennial loves—Satiety.

      “What a pity,” thought he, “to find one’s wife in two volumes. In one—poetry, delight, love, devotion, beauty, sweetness——”

      Esther was fussing about, as women do, before going to bed; she came and went and fluttered round, singing all the time; you might have thought her a humming-bird.

      “In the other—a noble name, family, honors, rank, knowledge of the world!—And no earthly means of combining them!” cried Lucien to himself.

      Next morning, at seven, when the poet awoke in the pretty pink-and-white room, he found himself alone. He rang, and Europe hurried in.

      “What are monsieur’s orders?”

      “Esther?”

      “Madame went off this morning at a quarter to five. By Monsieur l’Abbe’s order, I admitted a new face—carriage paid.”

      “A woman?”

      “No, sir, an English woman—one of those people who do their day’s work by night, and we are ordered to treat her as if she were madame. What can you have to say to such hack!—Poor Madame, how she cried when she got into the carriage. ‘Well, it has to be done!’ cried she. ‘I left that poor dear boy asleep,’ said she, wiping away her tears; ‘Europe, if he had looked at me or spoken my name, I should have stayed—I could but have died with him.’—I tell you, sir, I am so fond of madame, that I did not show her the person who has taken her place; some waiting maids would have broken her heart by doing so.”

      “And is the stranger there?”

      “Well, sir, she came in the chaise that took away madame, and I hid her in my room in obedience to my instructions——”

      “Is she nice-looking?”

      “So far as such a second-hand article can be. But she will find her part easy enough if you play yours, sir,” said Europe, going to fetch the false Esther.

      The night before, ere going to bed, the all-powerful banker had given his orders to his valet, who, at seven in the morning, brought in to him the notorious Louchard, the most famous of the commercial police, whom he left in a little sitting-room; there the Baron joined him, in a dressing gown and slippers.

      “You haf mate a fool of me!” he said, in reply to this official’s greeting.

      “I could not help myself, Monsieur le Baron. I do not want to lose my place, and I had the honor of explaining to you that I could not meddle in a matter that had nothing to do with my functions. What did I promise you? To put you into communication with one of our agents, who, as it seemed to me, would be best able to serve you. But you know, Monsieur le Baron, the sharp lines that divide men of different trades: if you build a house, you do not set a carpenter to do smith’s work. Well, there are two branches of the police—the political police and the judicial police. The political police never interfere with the other branch, and vice versa. If you apply to the chief of the political police, he must get permission from the Minister to take up our business, and you would not dare to explain it to the head of the police throughout the kingdom. A police-agent who should act on his own account would lose his place.

      “Well, the ordinary police are quite as cautious as the political police. So no one, whether in the Home Office or at the Prefecture of Police, ever moves excepting in the interests of the State or for the ends of Justice.

      “If there is a plot or a crime to be followed up, then, indeed, the heads of the corps are at your service; but you must understand, Monsieur le Baron, that they have other fish to fry than looking after the fifty thousand love affairs in Paris. As to me and my men, our only business is to arrest debtors; and as soon as anything else is to be done, we run enormous risks if we interfere with the peace and quiet of any man or woman. I sent you one of my men, but I told you I could not answer for him; you instructed him to find a particular woman in Paris; Contenson bled you of a thousand-franc note, and did not even move. You might as well look for a needle in the river as for a woman in Paris, who is supposed to haunt Vincennes, and of whom the description answers to every pretty woman in the capital.”

      “And could not Contenson haf tolt me de truf, instead of making me pleed out one tousand franc?”

      “Listen to me, Monsieur le Baron,” said Louchard. “Will you give me a thousand crowns? I will give you—sell you—a piece of advice?”

      “Is it vort one tousand crowns—your atvice?” asked Nucingen.

      “I am not to be caught, Monsieur le Baron,” answered Louchard. “You are in love, you want to discover the object of your passion; you are getting as yellow as a lettuce without water. Two physicians came to see you yesterday, your man tells me, who think your life is in danger; now, I alone can put you in the hands of a clever fellow.—But the deuce is in it! If your life is not worth a thousand crowns——”

      “Tell me de name of dat clefer fellow, and depent on my generosity——”

      Louchard took up his hat, bowed, and left the room.

      “Wat ein teufel!” cried Nucingen. “Come back—look here——”

      “Take notice,” said Louchard, before taking the money, “I am only selling a piece of information, pure and simple. I can give you the name and address of the only man who is able to be of use to you—but he is a master——”

      “Get out mit you,” cried Nucingen. “Dere is not no name dat is vort one tousant crown but dat von Varschild—and dat only ven it is sign at the bottom of a bank-bill.—I shall gif you one

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