ion of feeling in the two women--"You are making as much of him as
if he were bringing you any amount of money!"

"And what has my brother done that we should not make much of him?"
cried Eve, jealously screening Lucien.

Nevertheless, when the first expansion was over, shades of truth came
out. It was not long before Lucien felt the difference between the old
affection and the new. Eve respected David from the depths of her heart;
Lucien was beloved for his own sake, as we love a mistress still in
spite of the disasters she causes. Esteem, the very foundation on which
affection is based, is the solid stuff to which affection owes I know
not what of certainty and security by which we live; and this was
lacking between Mme. Chardon and her son, between the sister and the
brother. Mother and daughter did not put entire confidence in him, as
they would have done if he had not lost his honor; and he felt this.
The opinion expressed in d'Arthez's letter was Eve's own estimate of
her brother; unconsciously she revealed it by her manner, tones, and
gestures. Oh! Lucien was pitied, that was true; but as for all that he
had been, the pride of the household, the great man of the family, the
hero of the fireside,--all this, like their fair hopes of him, was gone,
never to return. They were so afraid of his heedlessness that he was not
told where David was hidden. Lucien wanted to see his brother; but
this Eve, insensible to the caresses which accompanied his curious
questionings, was not the Eve of L'Houmeau, for whom a glance from
him had been an order that must be obeyed. When Lucien spoke of making
reparation, and talked as though he could rescue David, Eve only
answered:

"Do not interfere; we have enemies of the most treacherous and dangerous
kind."

Lucien tossed his head, as one who should say, "I have measured myself
against Parisians," and the look in his sister's eyes said unmistakably,
"Yes, but you were defeated."

"Nobody cares for me now," Lucien thought. "In the home circle, as in
the world without, success is a necessity."

The poet tried to explain their lack of confidence in him; he had not
been at home two days before a feeling of vexation rather than of angry
bitterness gained hold on him. He applied Parisian standards to the
quiet, temperate existence of the provinces, quite forgetting that
the narrow, patient life of the household was the result of his own
misdoings.

"They are _bourgeoises_, they ca