hip I feel for you is marred by a
thought of self-interest? Why should you think me capable of that?"

Des Lupeaulx made a gesture of admiring denial.

"Ah!" she continued, "the heart of woman will always remain a secret
for even the cleverest of men. Yes, I welcomed you to my house with the
greatest pleasure; and there was, I admit, a motive of self-interest
behind my pleasure--"

"Ah!"

"You have a career before you," she whispered in his ear, "a future
without limit; you will be deputy, minister!" (What happiness for an
ambitious man when such things as these are warbled in his ear by the
sweet voice of a pretty woman!) "Oh, yes! I know you better than you
know yourself. Rabourdin is a man who could be of immense service to
you in such a career; he could do the steady work while you were in
the Chamber. Just as you dream of the ministry, so I dream of seeing
Rabourdin in the Council of State, and general director. It is therefore
my object to draw together two men who can never injure, but, on the
contrary, must greatly help each other. Isn't that a woman's mission?
If you are friends, you will both rise the faster, and it is surely
high time that each of you made hay. I have burned my ships," she added,
smiling. "But you are not as frank with me as I have been with you."

"You would not listen to me if I were," he replied, with a melancholy
air, in spite of the deep inward satisfaction her remarks gave him.
"What would such future promotions avail me, if you dismiss me now?"

"Before I listen to you," she replied, with naive Parisian liveliness,
"we must be able to understand each other."

And she left the old fop to go and speak with Madame de Chessel, a
countess from the provinces, who seemed about to take leave.

"That is a very extraordinary woman," said des Lupeaulx to himself. "I
don't know my own self when I am with her."

Accordingly, this man of no principle, who six years earlier had kept
a ballet-girl, and who now, thanks to his position, made himself a
seraglio with the pretty wives of the under-clerks, and lived in the
world of journalists and actresses, became devotedly attentive all the
evening to Celestine, and was the last to leave the house.

"At last!" thought Madame Rabourdin, as she undressed that night, "we
have the place! Twelve thousand francs a year and perquisites, beside
the rents of our farms at Grajeux,--nearly twenty thousand francs a
year. It is not affluence, but at least i