tic picture of
modern civilization.

In vain Mme. de Beauseant looked at Eugene as if asking him to speak;
the student was tongue-tied in the Vicomte's presence.

"Are you going to take me to the Italiens this evening?" the Vicomtesse
asked her husband.

"You cannot doubt that I should obey you with pleasure," he answered,
and there was a sarcastic tinge in his politeness which Eugene did not
detect, "but I ought to go to meet some one at the Varietes."

"His mistress," said she to herself.

"Then, is not Ajuda coming for you this evening?" inquired the Vicomte.

"No," she answered, petulantly.

"Very well, then, if you really must have an arm, take that of M. de
Rastignac."

The Vicomtess turned to Eugene with a smile.

"That would be a very compromising step for you," she said.

"'A Frenchman loves danger, because in danger there is glory,' to quote
M. de Chateaubriand," said Rastignac, with a bow.

A few moments later he was sitting beside Mme. de Beauseant in
a brougham, that whirled them through the streets of Paris to a
fashionable theatre. It seemed to him that some fairy magic had suddenly
transported him into a box facing the stage. All the lorgnettes of the
house were pointed at him as he entered, and at the Vicomtesse in her
charming toilette. He went from enchantment to enchantment.

"You must talk to me, you know," said Mme. de Beauseant. "Ah! look!
There is Mme. de Nucingen in the third box from ours. Her sister and M.
de Trailles are on the other side."

The Vicomtesse glanced as she spoke at the box where Mlle. de Rochefide
should have been; M. d'Ajuda was not there, and Mme. de Beauseant's face
lighted up in a marvelous way.

"She is charming," said Eugene, after looking at Mme. de Nucingen.

"She has white eyelashes."

"Yes, but she has such a pretty slender figure!"

"Her hands are large."

"Such beautiful eyes!"

"Her face is long."

"Yes, but length gives distinction."

"It is lucky for her that she has some distinction in her face. Just see
how she fidgets with her opera-glass! The Goriot blood shows itself in
every movement," said the Vicomtesse, much to Eugene's astonishment.

Indeed, Mme. de Beauseant seemed to be engaged in making a survey of
the house, and to be unconscious of Mme. Nucingen's existence; but no
movement made by the latter was lost upon the Vicomtesse. The house was
full of the loveliest women in Paris, so that Delphine de Nucingen was
not a little f