ill rise and shake off the Bourbons.
You are not only soiling your life, Lucien, you are going over to the
losing side. You are too young, too lately a journalist, too little
initiated into the secret springs of motive and the tricks of the craft,
you have aroused too much jealousy, not to fall a victim to the general
hue and cry that will be raised against you in the Liberal newspapers.
You will be drawn into the fray by party spirit now still at fever-heat;
though the fever, which spent itself in violence in 1815 and 1816, now
appears in debates in the Chamber and polemics in the papers."

"I am not quite a featherhead, my friends," said Lucien, "though you may
choose to see a poet in me. Whatever may happen, I shall gain one solid
advantage which no Liberal victory can give me. By the time your victory
is won, I shall have gained my end."

"We will cut off--your hair," said Michel Chrestien, with a laugh.

"I shall have my children by that time," said Lucien; "and if you cut
off my head, it will not matter."

The three could make nothing of Lucien. Intercourse with the great world
had developed in him the pride of caste, the vanities of the aristocrat.
The poet thought, and not without reason, that there was a fortune
in his good looks and intellect, accompanied by the name and title of
Rubempre. Mme. d'Espard and Mme. de Bargeton held him fast by this
clue, as a child holds a cockchafer by a string. Lucien's flight was
circumscribed. The words, "He is one of us, he is sound," accidentally
overheard but three days ago in Mlle. de Touches' salon, had turned
his head. The Duc de Lenoncourt, the Duc de Navarreins, the Duc de
Grandlieu, Rastignac, Blondet, the lovely Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, the
Comte d'Escrignon, and des Lupeaulx, all the most influential people at
Court in fact, had congratulated him on his conversion, and completed
his intoxication.

"Then there is no more to be said," d'Arthez rejoined. "You, of all
men, will find it hard to keep clean hands and self-respect. I know you,
Lucien; you will feel it acutely when you are despised by the very men
to whom you offer yourself."

The three took leave, and not one of them gave him a friendly handshake.
Lucien was thoughtful and sad for a few minutes.

"Oh! never mind those ninnies," cried Coralie, springing upon his
knee and putting her beautiful arms about his neck. "They take life
seriously, and life is a joke. Besides, you are going to be Count Lucie