sly ill," he answered; "if you will grant me a proof of
your affections, we will just go in to see him on the way."

"Very well," she said. "Yes, but afterwards. Dear Eugene, do be nice,
and don't preach to me. Come."

They set out. Eugene said nothing for a while.

"What is it now?" she asked.

"I can hear the death-rattle in your father's throat," he said almost
angrily. And with the hot indignation of youth, he told the story of
Mme. de Restaud's vanity and cruelty, of her father's final act of
self-sacrifice, that had brought about this struggle between life
and death, of the price that had been paid for Anastasie's golden
embroideries. Delphine cried.

"I shall look frightful," she thought. She dried her tears.

"I will nurse my father; I will not leave his bedside," she said aloud.

"Ah! now you are as I would have you," exclaimed Rastignac.

The lamps of five hundred carriages lit up the darkness about the Hotel
de Beauseant. A gendarme in all the glory of his uniform stood on either
side of the brightly lighted gateway. The great world was flocking
thither that night in its eager curiosity to see the great lady at the
moment of her fall, and the rooms on the ground floor were already full
to overflowing, when Mme. de Nucingen and Rastignac appeared. Never
since Louis XIV. tore her lover away from La grand Mademoiselle, and
the whole court hastened to visit that unfortunate princess, had a
disastrous love affair made such a sensation in Paris. But the youngest
daughter of the almost royal house of Burgundy had risen proudly above
her pain, and moved till the last moment like a queen in this world--its
vanities had always been valueless for her, save in so far as they
contributed to the triumph of her passion. The salons were filled with
the most beautiful women in Paris, resplendent in their toilettes, and
radiant with smiles. Ministers and ambassadors, the most distinguished
men at court, men bedizened with decorations, stars, and ribbons, men
who bore the most illustrious names in France, had gathered about the
Vicomtesse.

The music of the orchestra vibrated in wave after wave of sound from the
golden ceiling of the palace, now made desolate for its queen.

Madame de Beauseant stood at the door of the first salon to receive the
guests who were styled her friends. She was dressed in white, and wore
no ornament in the plaits of hair braided about her head; her face was
calm; there was no sign there of