cal
conduct; but suspicion, while it is still suspicion and not proof,
marks a woman out with the kind of distinction which slander gives to
a man. Nonentities are never slandered; they chafe because they are
left in peace. This woman was, in fact, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse,
a daughter of the d'Uxelles; her father-in-law was still alive; she
was not to be the Princesse de Cadignan for some years to come. A
friend of the Duchesse de Langeais and the Vicomtesse de Beauseant,
two glories departed, she was likewise intimate with the Marquise
d'Espard, with whom she disputed her fragile sovereignty as queen of
fashion. Great relations lent her countenance for a long while, but
the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was one of those women who, in some way,
nobody knows how, or why, or where, will spend the rents of all the
lands of earth, and of the moon likewise, if they were not out of
reach. The general outline of her character was scarcely known as yet;
de Marsay, and de Marsay only, really had read her. That redoubtable
dandy now watched the Vidame de Pamiers' introduction of his young
friend to that lovely woman, and bent over to say in Rastignac's ear:

"My dear fellow, he will go up /whizz/! like a rocket, and come down
like a stick," an atrociously vulgar saying which was remarkably
fulfilled.

The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had lost her heart to Victurnien after
first giving her mind to a serious study of him. Any lover who should
have caught the glance by which she expressed her gratitude to the
Vidame might well have been jealous of such friendship. Women are like
horses let loose on a steppe when they feel, as the Duchess felt with
the Vidame de Pamiers, that the ground is safe; at such moments they
are themselves; perhaps it pleases them to give, as it were, samples
of their tenderness in intimacy in this way. It was a guarded glance,
nothing was lost between eye and eye; there was no possibility of
reflection in any mirror. Nobody intercepted it.

"See how she has prepared herself," Rastignac said, turning to de
Marsay. "What a virginal toilette; what swan's grace in that
snow-white throat of hers! How white her gown is, and she is wearing
a sash like a little girl; she looks round like a madonna inviolate.
Who would think that you had passed that way?"

"The very reason why she looks as she does," returned de Marsay, with
a triumphant air.

The two young men exchanged a smile. Mme. de Maufrigneuse saw the
smile