not lack a certain spice of stupidity in his
composition, vowed that he would cross the room on tiptoe the next day,
and the perfidious Amelie held him to his bargain.

For Lucien that morrow was the day on which a young man tugs out some
of the hairs of his head, and inwardly vows that he will give up the
foolish business of sighing. He was accustomed to his situation. The
poet, who had seated himself so bashfully in the boudoir-sanctuary of
the queen of Angouleme, had been transformed into an urgent lover. Six
months had been enough to bring him on a level with Louise, and now
he would fain be her lord and master. He left home with a settled
determination to be extravagant in his behavior; he would say that it
was a matter of life or death to him; he would bring all the resources
of torrid eloquence into play; he would cry that he had lost his head,
that he could not think, could not write a line. The horror that some
women feel for premeditation does honor to their delicacy; they would
rather surrender upon the impulse of passion, than in fulfilment of a
contract. In general, prescribed happiness is not the kind that any of
us desire.

Mme. de Bargeton read fixed purpose in Lucien's eyes and forehead, and
in the agitation in his face and manner, and proposed to herself to
baffle him, urged thereto partly by a spirit of contradiction, partly
also by an exalted conception of love. Being given to exaggeration, she
set an exaggerated value upon her person. She looked upon herself as a
sovereign lady, a Beatrice, a Laura. She enthroned herself, like some
dame of the Middle Ages, upon a dais, looking down upon the tourney of
literature, and meant that Lucien, as in duty bound, should win her
by his prowess in the field; he must eclipse "the sublime child," and
Lamartine, and Sir Walter Scott, and Byron. The noble creature regarded
her love as a stimulating power; the desire which she had kindled
in Lucien should give him the energy to win glory for himself. This
feminine Quixotry is a sentiment which hallows love and turns it to
worthy uses; it exalts and reverences love. Mme. de Bargeton having made
up her mind to play the part of Dulcinea in Lucien's life for seven
or eight years to come, desired, like many other provincials, to give
herself as the reward of prolonged service, a trial of constancy which
should give her time to judge her lover.

Lucien began the strife by a piece of vehement petulence, at which a
woma