such an
unimaginable character; indeed, he had scarcely frequented the house
long enough. M. de Bargeton, spread at full length in his great chair,
appeared to see and understand all that was going on; his silence added
to his dignity, and his figure inspired Lucien with a prodigious awe. It
is the wont of imaginative natures to magnify everything, or to find a
soul to inhabit every shape; and Lucien took this gentleman, not for
a granite guard-post, but for a formidable sphinx, and thought it
necessary to conciliate him.

"I am the first comer," he said, bowing with more respect than people
usually showed the worthy man.

"That is natural enough," said M. de Bargeton.

Lucien took the remark for an epigram; the lady's husband was jealous,
he thought; he reddened under it, looked in the glass and tried to give
himself a countenance.

"You live in L'Houmeau," said M. de Bargeton, "and people who live a
long way off always come earlier than those who live near by."

"What is the reason of that?" asked Lucien politely.

"I don't know," answered M. de Bargeton, relapsing into immobility.

"You have not cared to find out," Lucien began again; "any one who could
make an observation could discover the cause."

"Ah!" said M. de Bargeton, "final causes! Eh! eh!..."

The conversation came to a dead stop; Lucien racked his brains to
resuscitate it.

"Mme. de Bargeton is dressing, no doubt," he began, shuddering at the
silliness of the question.

"Yes, she is dressing," her husband naturally answered.

Lucien looked up at the ceiling and vainly tried to think of something
else to say. As his eyes wandered over the gray painted joists and the
spaces of plaster between, he saw, not without qualms, that the little
chandelier with the old-fashioned cut-glass pendants had been stripped
of its gauze covering and filled with wax candles. All the covers had
been removed from the furniture, and the faded flowered silk damask had
come to light. These preparations meant something extraordinary. The
poet looked at his boots, and misgivings about his costume arose in
his mind. Grown stupid with dismay, he turned and fixed his eyes on
a Japanese jar standing on a begarlanded console table of the time
of Louis Quinze; then, recollecting that he must conciliate Mme. de
Bargeton's husband, he tried to find out if the good gentleman had a
hobby of any sort in which he might be humored.

"You seldom leave the city, monsieur?" he began