she said. "If he wishes to drop his
patronymic and to bear his mother's name, he should at any rate be on
the right side, should he not?"

"In less than two months I will arrange everything," said Lucien.

"Very well," returned Mme. d'Espard. "I will speak to my father and
uncle; they are in waiting, they will speak to the Chancellor for you."

The diplomatist and the two women had very soon discovered Lucien's weak
side. The poet's head was turned by the glory of the aristocracy; every
man who entered the rooms bore a sounding name mounted in a glittering
title, and he himself was plain Chardon. Unspeakable mortification
filled him at the sound of it. Wherever he had been during the last few
days, that pang had been constantly present with him. He felt, moreover,
a sensation quite as unpleasant when he went back to his desk after an
evening spent in the great world, in which he made a tolerable figure,
thanks to Coralie's carriage and Coralie's servants.

He learned to ride, in order to escort Mme. d'Espard, Mlle. des Touches,
and the Comtesse de Montcornet when they drove in the Bois, a privilege
which he had envied other young men so greatly when he first came to
Paris. Finot was delighted to give his right-hand man an order for the
Opera, so Lucien wasted many an evening there, and thenceforward he was
among the exquisites of the day.

The poet asked Rastignac and his new associates to a breakfast, and made
the blunder of giving it in Coralie's rooms in the Rue de Vendome;
he was too young, too much of a poet, too self-confident, to discern
certain shades and distinctions in conduct; and how should an actress,
a good-hearted but uneducated girl, teach him life? His guests were
anything but charitably disposed towards him; it was clearly proven to
their minds that Lucien the critic and the actress were in collusion
for their mutual interests, and all of the young men were jealous of an
arrangement which all of them stigmatized. The most pitiless of those
who laughed that evening at Lucien's expense was Rastignac himself.
Rastignac had made and held his position by very similar means; but
so careful had he been of appearances, that he could afford to treat
scandal as slander.

Lucien proved an apt pupil at whist. Play became a passion with him; and
so far from disapproving, Coralie encouraged his extravagance with the
peculiar short-sightedness of an all-absorbing love, which sees nothing
beyond the moment, and