went with the Vicomtesse to the peristyle, where people
were waiting till their carriages were announced.

"That cousin of yours is hardly recognizable for the same man," said the
Portuguese laughingly to the Vicomtesse, when Eugene had taken leave of
them. "He will break the bank. He is as supple as an eel; he will go a
long way, of that I am sure. Who else could have picked out a woman for
him, as you did, just when she needed consolation?"

"But it is not certain that she does not still love the faithless
lover," said Mme. de Beauseant.

The student meanwhile walked back from the Theatre-Italien to the Rue
Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, making the most delightful plans as he went. He
had noticed how closely Mme. de Restaud had scrutinized him when he sat
beside Mme. de Nucingen, and inferred that the Countess' doors would not
be closed in the future. Four important houses were now open to him--for
he meant to stand well with the Marechale; he had four supporters in the
inmost circle of society in Paris. Even now it was clear to him that,
once involved in this intricate social machinery, he must attach himself
to a spoke of the wheel that was to turn and raise his fortunes; he
would not examine himself too curiously as to the methods, but he was
certain of the end, and conscious of the power to gain and keep his
hold.

"If Mme. de Nucingen takes an interest in me, I will teach her how to
manage her husband. That husband of hers is a great speculator; he might
put me in the way of making a fortune by a single stroke."

He did not say this bluntly in so many words; as yet, indeed, he was
not sufficient of a diplomatist to sum up a situation, to see its
possibilities at a glance, and calculate the chances in his favor. These
were nothing but hazy ideas that floated over his mental horizon; they
were less cynical than Vautrin's notions; but if they had been tried in
the crucible of conscience, no very pure result would have issued from
the test. It is by a succession of such like transactions that men sink
at last to the level of the relaxed morality of this epoch, when there
have never been so few of those who square their courses with their
theories, so few of those noble characters who do not yield to
temptation, for whom the slightest deviation from the line of rectitude
is a crime. To these magnificent types of uncompromising Right we owe
two masterpieces--the Alceste of Moliere, and, in our own day, the
characters of