er. Try to be a gaby as well as a nabob, and fear nothing."

In the evening of this day, when the opposing forces had met face to
face on level ground, Lucien spent the evening at the Hotel Grandlieu.
The party was a large one. In the face of all the assembly, the Duchess
kept Lucien at her side for some time, and was most kind to him.

"You are going away for a little while?" said she.

"Yes, Madame la Duchesse. My sister, in her anxiety to promote my
marriage, has made great sacrifices, and I have been enabled to
repurchase the lands of the Rubempres, to reconstitute the whole estate.
But I have found in my Paris lawyer a very clever man, who has managed
to save me from the extortionate terms that the holders would have asked
if they had known the name of the purchaser."

"Is there a chateau?" asked Clotilde, with too broad a smile.

"There is something which might be called a chateau; but the wiser plan
would be to use the building materials in the construction of a modern
residence."

Clotilde's eyes blazed with happiness above her smile of satisfaction.

"You must play a rubber with my father this evening," said she. "In a
fortnight I hope you will be asked to dinner."

"Well, my dear sir," said the Duc de Grandlieu, "I am told that you have
bought the estate of Rubempre. I congratulate you. It is an answer to
those who say you are in debt. We bigwigs, like France or England, are
allowed to have a public debt; but men of no fortune, beginners, you
see, may not assume that privilege----"

"Indeed, Monsieur le Duc, I still owe five hundred thousand francs on my
land."

"Well, well, you must marry a wife who can bring you the money; but you
will have some difficulty in finding a match with such a fortune in our
Faubourg, where daughters do not get large dowries."

"Their name is enough," said Lucien.

"We are only three wisk players--Maufrigneuse, d'Espard, and I--will you
make a fourth?" said the Duke, pointing to the card-table.

Clotilde came to the table to watch her father's game.

"She expects me to believe that she means it for me," said the Duke,
patting his daughter's hands, and looking round at Lucien, who remained
quite grave.

Lucien, Monsieur d'Espard's partner, lost twenty louis.

"My dear mother," said Clotilde to the Duchess, "he was so judicious as
to lose."

At eleven o'clock, after a few affectionate words with Mademoiselle de
Grandlieu, Lucien went home and to bed, thinking