were playing
high on that gambling-table kept open all day long at the Bourse, or
in private houses at the clubs, and anywhere and everywhere in Paris;
but not one of these men could spare a banknote to save an intimate.
There was no help for it--Chesnel must be ruined. He had devoured
Chesnel's living.

He sat with the Duchess in their box at the Italiens, the whole house
envying them their happiness, and while he smiled at her, all the
Furies were tearing at his heart. Indeed, to give some idea of the
depths of doubt, despair, and incredulity in which the boy was
groveling; he who so clung to life--the life which the angel had made
so fair--who so loved it, that he would have stooped to baseness
merely to live; he, the pleasure-loving scapegrace, the degenerate
d'Esgrignon, had even taken out his pistols, had gone so far as to
think of suicide. He who would never have brooked the appearance of an
insult was abusing himself in language which no man is likely to hear
except from himself.

He left du Croisier's letter lying open on the bed. Josephin had
brought it in at nine o'clock. Victurnien's furniture had been
seized, but he slept none the less. After he came back from the
Opera, he and the Duchess had gone to a voluptuous retreat, where
they often spent a few hours together after the most brilliant
court balls and evening parties and gaieties. Appearances were
very cleverly saved. Their love-nest was a garret like any other
to all appearance; Mme. de Maufrigneuse was obliged to bow her
head with its court feathers or wreath of flowers to enter in at
the door; but within all the peris of the East had made the
chamber fair. And now that the Count was on the brink of ruin, he
had longed to bid farewell to the dainty nest, which he had built
to realize a day-dream worthy of his angel. Presently adversity
would break the enchanted eggs; there would be no brood of white
doves, no brilliant tropical birds, no more of the thousand
bright-winged fancies which hover above our heads even to the
last days of our lives. Alas! alas! in three days he must be
gone; his bills had fallen into the hands of the money-lenders,
the law proceedings had reached the last stage.

An evil thought crossed his brain. He would fly with the Duchess; they
would live in some undiscovered nook in the wilds of North or South
America; but--he would fly with a fortune, and leave his creditors to
confront their bills. To carry out the plan, he had