s a month and not a
penny more, and the hire of a carriage. But what is it? A machine such
as they hire out for a third-rate wedding to carry an epicier to the
Mairie, to Church, and to the Cadran bleu.--Oh, he nettles me with his
respect.

"If I try hysterics and feel ill, he is never vexed; he only says:
'I wish my lady to have her own way, for there is nothing more
detestable--no gentleman--than to say to a nice woman, "You are a
cotton bale, a bundle of merchandise."--Ha, hah! Are you a member of the
Temperance Society and anti-slavery?' And my horror sits pale, and cold,
and hard while he gives me to understand that he has as much respect for
me as he might have for a Negro, and that it has nothing to do with his
feelings, but with his opinions as an abolitionist."

"A man cannot be a worse wretch," said Esther. "But I will smash up that
outlandish Chinee."

"Smash him up?" replied Madame du Val-Noble. "Not if he does not love
me. You, yourself, would you like to ask him for two sous? He would
listen to you solemnly, and tell you, with British precision that would
make a slap in the face seem genial, that he pays dear enough for the
trifle that love can be to his poor life;" and, as before, Madame du
Val-Noble mimicked Peyrade's bad French.

"To think that in our line of life we are thrown in the way of such
men!" exclaimed Esther.

"Oh, my dear, you have been uncommonly lucky. Take good care of your
Nucingen."

"But your nabob must have got some idea in his head."

"That is what Adele says."

"Look here, my dear; that man, you may depend, has laid a bet that he
will make a woman hate him and pack him off in a certain time."

"Or else he wants to do business with Nucingen, and took me up knowing
that you and I were friends; that is what Adele thinks," answered Madame
du Val-Noble. "That is why I introduced him to you this evening. Oh, if
only I could be sure what he is at, what tricks I could play with you
and Nucingen!"

"And you don't get angry?" asked Esther; "you don't speak your mind now
and then?"

"Try it--you are sharp and smooth.--Well, in spite of your sweetness, he
would kill you with his icy smiles. 'I am anti-slavery,' he would say,
'and you are free.'--If you said the funniest things, he would only
look at you and say, 'Very good!' and you would see that he regards you
merely as a part of the show."

"And if you turned furious?"

"The same thing; it would still be a show. You might c