a count;
he declares that by the third generation the family will be noble.
Nucingen, who is tired of his house in the rue Saint-Lazare, is building
a palace. His wife is a friend of mine--Ah!" she cried, interrupting
herself, "she might help us; she is very bold with her husband; her
fortune is in her own right. Yes, she could save you."

"Dear heart, I have but a few hours left; let us go to her this evening,
now, instantly," said Madame de Vandenesse, throwing herself into Madame
du Tillet's arms with a burst of tears.

"I can't go out at eleven o'clock at night," replied her sister.

"My carriage is here."

"What are you two plotting together?" said du Tillet, pushing open the
door of the boudoir.

He came in showing a torpid face lighted now by a speciously amiable
expression. The carpets had dulled his steps and the preoccupation
of the two sisters had kept them from noticing the noise of his
carriage-wheels on entering the court-yard. The countess, in whom the
habits of social life and the freedom in which her husband had left
her had developed both wit and shrewdness,--qualities repressed in
her sister by marital despotism, which simply continued that of their
mother,--saw that Eugenie's terror was on the point of betraying them,
and she evaded that danger by a frank answer.

"I thought my sister richer than she is," she replied, looking straight
at her brother-in-law. "Women are sometimes embarrassed for money, and
do not wish to tell their husbands, like Josephine with Napoleon. I came
here to ask Eugenie to do me a service."

"She can easily do that, madame. Eugenie is very rich," replied du
Tillet, with concealed sarcasm.

"Is she?" replied the countess, smiling bitterly.

"How much do you want?" asked du Tillet, who was not sorry to get his
sister-in-law into his meshes.

"Ah, monsieur! but I have told you already we do not wish to let
our husbands into this affair," said Madame de Vandenesse,
cautiously,--aware that if she took his money, she would put herself at
the mercy of the man whose portrait Eugenie had fortunately drawn
for her not ten minutes earlier. "I will come to-morrow and talk with
Eugenie."

"To-morrow?" said the banker. "No; Madame du Tillet dines to-morrow with
a future peer of France, the Baron de Nucingen, who is to leave me his
place in the Chamber of Deputies."

"Then permit her to join me in my box at the Opera," said the countess,
without even glancing at her sister,