imself. "But is it
necessary to have a pair of spirited horses, servants in livery, and
torrents of gold to draw a glance from a woman here in Paris?"

The demon of luxury gnawed at his heart, greed burned in his veins, his
throat was parched with the thirst of gold.

He had a hundred and thirty francs every quarter. His father, mother,
brothers, sisters, and aunt did not spend two hundred francs a month
among them. This swift comparison between his present condition and the
aims he had in view helped to benumb his faculties.

"Why not?" the Vicomtesse was saying, as she smiled at the Portuguese.
"Why cannot you come to the Italiens?"

"Affairs! I am to dine with the English Ambassador."

"Throw him over."

When a man once enters on a course of deception, he is compelled to
add lie to lie. M. d'Ajuda therefore said, smiling, "Do you lay your
commands on me?"

"Yes, certainly."

"That was what I wanted to have you say to me," he answered, dissembling
his feelings in a glance which would have reassured any other woman.

He took the Vicomtesse's hand, kissed it, and went.

Eugene ran his fingers through his hair, and constrained himself to bow.
He thought that now Mme. de Beauseant would give him her attention;
but suddenly she sprang forward, rushed to a window in the gallery, and
watched M. d'Ajuda step into his carriage; she listened to the order
that he gave, and heard the Swiss repeat it to the coachman:

"To M. de Rochefide's house."

Those words, and the way in which M. d'Ajuda flung himself back in the
carriage, were like a lightning flash and a thunderbolt for her; she
walked back again with a deadly fear gnawing at her heart. The most
terrible catastrophes only happen among the heights. The Vicomtesse
went to her own room, sat down at a table, and took up a sheet of dainty
notepaper.

"When, instead of dining with the English Ambassador,"
she wrote, "you go to the Rochefides, you owe me an
explanation, which I am waiting to hear."

She retraced several of the letters, for her hand was trembling so that
they were indistinct; then she signed the note with an initial C for
"Claire de Bourgogne," and rang the bell.

"Jacques," she said to the servant, who appeared immediately, "take
this note to M. de Rochefide's house at half-past seven and ask for the
Marquis d'Ajuda. If M. d'Ajuda is there, leave the note without waiting
for an answer; if he is not there, bring the note back to me."