d Mme. de Bargeton was
not discussed; and though the utmost extent of their guilt amounted to
two or three kisses, the world already chose to believe the worst of
both. Mme. de Bargeton paid the penalty of her sovereignty. Among the
various eccentricities of society, have you never noticed its erratic
judgments and the unaccountable differences in the standard it requires
of this or that man or woman? There are some persons who may do
anything; they may behave totally irrationally, anything becomes them,
and it is who shall be first to justify their conduct; then, on the
other hand, there are those on whom the world is unaccountably severe,
they must do everything well, they are not allowed to fail nor to make
mistakes, at their peril they do anything foolish; you might compare
these last to the much-admired statues which must come down at once from
their pedestal if the frost chips off a nose or a finger. They are not
permitted to be human; they are required to be for ever divine and for
ever impeccable. So one glance exchanged between Mme. de Bargeton and
Lucien outweighed twelve years of Zizine's connection with Francis in
the social balance; and a squeeze of the hand drew down all the thunders
of the Charente upon the lovers.

David had brought a little secret hoard back with him from Paris, and it
was this sum that he set aside for the expenses of his marriage and for
the building of the second floor in his father's house. His father's
house it was; but, after all, was he not working for himself? It would
all be his again some day, and his father was sixty-eight years old.
So David build a timbered second story for Lucien, so as not to put too
great a strain on the old rifted house-walls. He took pleasure in making
the rooms where the fair Eve was to spend her life as brave as might be.

It was a time of blithe and unmixed happiness for the friends. Lucien
was tired of the shabbiness of provincial life, and weary of the sordid
frugality that looked on a five-franc piece as a fortune, but he bore
the hardships and the pinching thrift without grumbling. His moody looks
had been succeeded by an expression of radiant hope. He saw the star
shining above his head, he had dreams of a great time to come, and built
the fabric of his good fortune on M. de Bargeton's tomb. M. de Bargeton,
troubled with indigestion from time to time, cherished the happy
delusion that indigestion after dinner was a complaint to be cured by a
h