d to de Marsay in the greenroom at the
opera-house, "that La Torpille vanished the very day after the evening
when we saw her here and recognized her in little Rubempre's mistress."

In Paris, as in the provinces, everything is known. The police of the
Rue de Jerusalem are not so efficient as the world itself, for every
one is a spy on every one else, though unconsciously. Carlos had fully
understood the danger of Lucien's position during and after the episode
of the Rue Taitbout.

No position can be more dreadful than that in which Madame du Val-Noble
now found herself; and the phrase to be on the loose, or, as the
French say, left on foot, expresses it perfectly. The recklessness and
extravagance of these women precludes all care for the future. In that
strange world, far more witty and amusing than might be supposed, only
such women as are not gifted with that perfect beauty which time can
hardly impair, and which is quite unmistakable--only such women, in
short, as can be loved merely as a fancy, ever think of old age and save
a fortune. The handsomer they are, the more improvident they are.

"Are you afraid of growing ugly that you are saving money?" was a speech
of Florine's to Mariette, which may give a clue to one cause of this
thriftlessness.

Thus, if a speculator kills himself, or a spendthrift comes to the
end of his resources, these women fall with hideous promptitude from
audacious wealth to the utmost misery. They throw themselves into the
clutches of the old-clothes buyer, and sell exquisite jewels for a mere
song; they run into debt, expressly to keep up a spurious luxury, in the
hope of recovering what they have lost--a cash-box to draw upon.
These ups and downs of their career account for the costliness of such
connections, generally brought about as Asie had hooked (another word of
her vocabulary) Nucingen for Esther.

And so those who know their Paris are quite aware of the state
of affairs when, in the Champs-Elysees--that bustling and mongrel
bazaar--they meet some woman in a hired fly whom six months or a year
before they had seen in a magnificent and dazzling carriage, turned out
in the most luxurious style.

"If you fall on Sainte-Pelagie, you must contrive to rebound on the
Bois de Boulogne," said Florine, laughing with Blondet over the little
Vicomte de Portenduere.

Some clever women never run the risk of this contrast. They bury
themselves in horrible furnished lodgings, where they