lie and Mme. du Val-Noble, went to
the Opera, where Merlin had a box. The whole party adjourned thither,
and Lucien triumphant reappeared upon the scene of his first serious
check.

He walked in the lobby, arm in arm with Merlin and Blondet, looking
the dandies who had once made merry at his expense between the eyes.
Chatelet was under his feet. He clashed glances with de Marsay,
Vandenesse, and Manerville, the bucks of that day. And indeed Lucien,
beautiful and elegantly arrayed, had caused a discussion in the Marquise
d'Espard's box; Rastignac had paid a long visit, and the Marquise and
Mme. de Bargeton put up their opera-glasses at Coralie. Did the sight
of Lucien send a pang of regret through Mme. de Bargeton's heart?
This thought was uppermost in the poet's mind. The longing for revenge
aroused in him by the sight of the Corinne of Angouleme was as fierce
as on that day when the lady and her cousin had cut him in the
Champs-Elysees.

"Did you bring an amulet with you from the provinces?"--It was Blondet
who made this inquiry some few days later, when he called at eleven
o'clock in the morning and found that Lucien was not yet risen.--"His
good looks are making ravages from cellar to garret, high and low,"
continued Blondet, kissing Coralie on the forehead. "I have come to
enlist you, dear fellow," he continued, grasping Lucien by the hand.
"Yesterday, at the Italiens, the Comtesse de Montcornet asked me to
bring you to her house. You will not give a refusal to a charming woman?
You meet people of the first fashion there."

"If Lucien is nice, he will not go to see your Countess," put in
Coralie. "What call is there for him to show his face in fine society?
He would only be bored there."

"Have you a vested interest in him? Are you jealous of fine ladies?"

"Yes," cried Coralie. "They are worse than we are."

"How do you know that, my pet?" asked Blondet.

"From their husbands," retorted she. "You are forgetting that I once had
six months of de Marsay."

"Do you suppose, child, that _I_ am particularly anxious to take such
a handsome fellow as your poet to Mme. de Montcornet's house? If you
object, let us consider that nothing has been said. But I don't fancy
that the women are so much in question as a poor devil that Lucien
pilloried in his newspaper; he is begging for mercy and peace. The Baron
du Chatelet is imbecile enough to take the thing seriously. The Marquise
d'Espard, Mme. de Bargeton, and Mme. d