about them, you would shun me," she said.
"Your love for me is as yet only the conventional gallantry that men use
to masquerade in; and, if you really loved me, you would be driven to
despair. I must keep silence, you see. Let us talk of something else,
for pity's sake," she added. "Let me show you my rooms."

"No; let us stay here," answered Eugene; he sat down on the sofa
before the fire, and boldly took Mme. de Nucingen's hand in his. She
surrendered it to him; he even felt the pressure of her fingers in one
of the spasmodic clutches that betray terrible agitation.

"Listen," said Rastignac; "if you are in trouble, you ought to tell me
about it. I want to prove to you that I love you for yourself alone. You
must speak to me frankly about your troubles, so that I can put an end
to them, even if I have to kill half-a-dozen men; or I shall go, never
to return."

"Very well," she cried, putting her hand to her forehead in an agony of
despair, "I will put you to the proof, and this very moment. Yes," she
said to herself, "I have no other resource left."

She rang the bell.

"Are the horses put in for the master?" she asked of the servant.

"Yes, madame."

"I shall take his carriage myself. He can have mine and my horses. Serve
dinner at seven o'clock."

"Now, come with me," she said to Eugene, who thought as he sat in
the banker's carriage beside Mme. de Nucingen that he must surely be
dreaming.

"To the Palais-Royal," she said to the coachman; "stop near the
Theatre-Francais."

She seemed to be too troubled and excited to answer the innumerable
questions that Eugene put to her. He was at a loss what to think of her
mute resistance, her obstinate silence.

"Another moment and she will escape me," he said to himself.

When the carriage stopped at last, the Baroness gave the law student a
glance that silenced his wild words, for he was almost beside himself.

"Is it true that you love me?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, and in his manner and tone there was no trace of the
uneasiness that he felt.

"You will not think ill of me, will you, whatever I may ask of you?"

"No."

"Are you ready to do my bidding?"

"Blindly."

"Have you ever been to a gaming-house?" she asked in a tremulous voice.

"Never."

"Ah! now I can breathe. You will have luck. Here is my purse," she said.
"Take it! there are a hundred francs in it, all that such a fortunate
woman as I can call her own. Go up into one of the ga