The party of four found two cabs waiting for them at the door in the Rue
des Fosses-du-Temple. Coralie drew Lucien to one of the two, in which
Camusot and his father-in-law old Cardot were seated already. She
offered du Bruel a fifth place, and the manager drove off with Florine,
Matifat, and Lousteau.

"These hackney cabs are abominable things," said Coralie.

"Why don't you have a carriage?" returned du Bruel.

"_Why_?" she asked pettishly. "I do not like to tell you before M.
Cardot's face; for he trained his son-in-law, no doubt. Would you
believe it, little and old as he is, M. Cardot only gives Florine five
hundred francs a month, just about enough to pay for her rent and her
grub and her clothes. The old Marquis de Rochegude offered me a brougham
two months ago, and he has six hundred thousand francs a year, but I am
an artist and not a common hussy."

"You shall have a carriage the day after to-morrow, miss," said Camusot
benignly; "you never asked me for one."

"As if one _asked_ for such a thing as that? What! you love a woman and
let her paddle about in the mud at the risk of breaking her legs? Nobody
but a knight of the yardstick likes to see a draggled skirt hem."

As she uttered the sharp words that cut Camusot to the quick, she groped
for Lucien's knee, and pressed it against her own, and clasped her
fingers upon his hand. She was silent. All her power to feel seemed
to be concentrated upon the ineffable joy of a moment which brings
compensation for the whole wretched past of a life such as these poor
creatures lead, and develops within their souls a poetry of which other
women, happily ignorant of these violent revulsions, know nothing.

"You played like Mlle. Mars herself towards the end," said du Bruel.

"Yes," said Camusot, "something put her out at the beginning; but from
the middle of the second act to the very end, she was enough to drive
you wild with admiration. Half of the success of your play was due to
her."

"And half of her success is due to me," said du Bruel.

"This is all much ado about nothing," said Coralie in an unfamiliar
voice. And, seizing an opportunity in the darkness, she carried Lucien's
hand to her lips and kissed it and drenched it with tears. Lucien felt
thrilled through and through by that touch, for in the humility of the
courtesan's love there is a magnificence which might set an example to
angels.

"Are you writing the dramatic criticism, monsieur?" said du B