e we are accustomed to a great deal of
movement and stir about the smallest things.

The count, who was dressed in the fashion of 1839, wore a black coat,
a cashmere waistcoat of dark blue embroidered with tiny flowers of a
lighter blue, black trousers, gray silk stockings, and varnished leather
shoes. His watch, placed in one of his waistcoat pockets, was fastened
by an elegant chain to a button-hole.

"Rastignac," he said, accepting the cup of tea which the pretty Madame
de Rastignac offered him, "will you come with me to the Austrian
ambassador's?"

"My dear fellow, I am too recently married not to go home with my wife."

"That means that _later_--" said the young countess, turning round and
looking at her husband.

"Later is the end of the world," replied Maxime. "But I shall certainly
win my cause if I take Madame for a judge."

With a charming gesture, the count invited the pretty countess to come
nearer to him. After listening a few moments and looking at her mother,
she said to Rastignac:--

"If you want to go to the embassy with Monsieur de Trailles, mamma will
take me home."

A few moments later the Baronne de Nucingen and the Comtesse de
Rastignac went away together. Maxime and Rastignac followed a little
later, and when they were both seated in the count's carriage, the
latter said:--

"What do you want of me, Maxime? Why do you take me by the throat in
this way? What did you say to my wife?"

"I told her I had something to say to you. You are a lucky fellow,
you are! You have ended by marrying the only heiress of the Nucingen
millions--after twenty years at hard labor."

"Maxime!"

"But I! here am I, exposed to the doubts of everybody. A miserable
coward like du Tillet dares to ask if I have the courage to kill myself!
It is high time for me to settle down. Does the ministry want to get
rid of me, or does it not? You ought to know. At any rate, you must
find out," continued Maxime, making a gesture with his hand to silence
Rastignac. "Here is my plan: listen to it. You ought to serve me, for
I have served you, and can serve you again. The life I live now is
intolerable; I want an escape from it. Help me to a marriage which
shall bring me half a million. Once married, appoint me minister to some
wretched little republic in America. I'll stay there long enough to
make my promotion to the same post in Germany legitimate. If I am worth
anything, they will soon take me out of it; if I am not wort