greatcoat,
dismounted and let down the step. As Eugene stepped out of the cab, he
heard smothered laughter from the peristyle. Three or four lackeys
were making merry over the festal appearance of the vehicle. In
another moment the law student was enlightened as to the cause of their
hilarity; he felt the full force of the contrast between his equipage
and one of the smartest broughams in Paris; a coachman, with powdered
hair, seemed to find it difficult to hold a pair of spirited horses, who
stood chafing the bit. In Mme. de Restaud's courtyard, in the Chaussee
d'Antin, he had seen the neat turnout of a young man of six-and-twenty;
in the Faubourg Saint-Germain he found the luxurious equipage of a man
of rank; thirty thousand francs would not have purchased it.

"Who can be here?" said Eugene to himself. He began to understand,
though somewhat tardily, that he must not expect to find many women in
Paris who were not already appropriated, and that the capture of one
of these queens would be likely to cost something more than bloodshed.
"Confound it all! I expect my cousin also has her Maxime."

He went up the steps, feeling that he was a blighted being. The glass
door was opened for him; the servants were as solemn as jackasses under
the curry comb. So far, Eugene had only been in the ballroom on the
ground floor of the Hotel Beauseant; the fete had followed so closely on
the invitation, that he had not had time to call on his cousin, and had
therefore never seen Mme. de Beauseant's apartments; he was about to
behold for the first time a great lady among the wonderful and elegant
surroundings that reveal her character and reflect her daily life.
He was the more curious, because Mme. de Restaud's drawing-room had
provided him with a standard of comparison.

At half-past four the Vicomtesse de Beauseant was visible. Five minutes
earlier she would not have received her cousin, but Eugene knew nothing
of the recognized routine of various houses in Paris. He was conducted
up the wide, white-painted, crimson-carpeted staircase, between the
gilded balusters and masses of flowering plants, to Mme. de Beauseant's
apartments. He did not know the rumor current about Mme. de Beauseant,
one of the biographies told, with variations, in whispers, every evening
in the salons of Paris.

For three years past her name had been spoken of in connection with
that of one of the most wealthy and distinguished Portuguese nobles,
the Marqui