no more, for,
at this moment, a young man entered the room familiarly, whose step,
recognized from afar by the beautiful Delphine de Nucingen, brought the
color to her cheek.

"Goot morning, my tear te Marsay; tak my blace. Dere is a crowd, zey
tell me, waiting in der gounting-room. I know vy. Der mines of Wortschin
bay a graat divitent! I haf receifed die aggonts. You vill haf one
hundert tousant francs, Matame de Nucingen, so you can buy chewels and
oder tings to make you bretty,--as if you could be brettier!"

"Good God! the Ragons sold their shares!" exclaimed Birotteau.

"Who are those persons?" asked the elegant de Marsay, smiling.

"Egzactly," said Monsieur de Nucingen, turning back when he was almost
at the door. "I zink tat dose persons--te Marsay, dis is Monsieur
Pirodot, your berfumer, who gifs palls of a magnifissence druly
Aziatique, and whom der king has decoraded."

De Marsay lifted his eyeglass, and said, "Ah! true, I thought the face
was not unknown to me. So you are going to perfume your affairs with
potent cosmetics, oil them with--"

"Ah! dose Rakkons," interrupted the baron, making a grimace expressive
of disgust; "dey had an aggont mit us; I fafored dem, and dey could haf
made der fortune, but dey would not wait one zingle day longer."

"Monsieur le baron!" cried Birotteau.

The worthy man thought his own prospects extremely doubtful, and without
bowing to Madame de Nucingen, or to de Marsay, he hastily followed the
banker. The baron was already on the staircase, and Birotteau caught
him at the bottom just as he was about to enter the counting-room.
As Nucingen opened the door he saw the despairing gesture of the poor
creature behind him, who felt himself pushed into a gulf, and said
hastily,--

"Vell, it is all agreet. See tu Tillet, and arranche it mit him."

Birotteau, thinking that de Marsay might have some influence with
Nucingen, ran back with the rapidity of a swallow, and slipped into the
dining-room where he had left the baronne and the young man, and where
Delphine was waiting for a cup of _cafe a la creme_. He saw that the
coffee had been served, but the baronne and the dandy had disappeared.
The footman smiled at the astonishment of the worthy man, who slowly
re-descended the stairs. Cesar rushed to du Tillet's, and was told that
he had gone into the country with Madame Roguin. He took a cabriolet,
and paid the driver well to be taken rapidly to Nogent-sur-Marne.
At Nogent-s