“An unheard-of-thing, my dear, explicable but unexplained. The most formidable men are her friends, and why? Nobody dares to fathom the mystery. Then is this person the lion of Angoulême?” “Well, M. le Baron du Châtelet has been a good deal talked about,” answered Mme. de Bargeton, moved by vanity to give her adorer the title which she herself had called in question. “He was M. de Montriveau’s traveling companion.” “Ah!” said the Marquise d’Espard, “I never hear that name without thinking of the Duchesse de Langeais, poor thing. She vanished like a falling star.—That is M. de Rastignac with Mme. de Nucingen,” she continued, indicating another box; “she is the wife of a contractor, a banker, a city man, a broker on a large scale; he forced his way into society with his money, and they say that he is not very scrupulous as to his methods of making it. He is at endless pains to establish his credit as a staunch upholder of the Bourbons, and has tried already to gain admittance into my set. When his wife took Mme. de Langeais’ box, she thought that she could take her charm, her wit, and her success as well. It is the old fable of the jay in the peacock’s feathers!” “How do M. and Mme. de Rastignac manage to keep their son in Paris, when, as we know, their income is under a thousand crowns?” asked Lucien, in his astonishment at Rastignac’s elegant and expensive dress. “It is easy to see that you come from Angoulême,” said Mme. d’Espard, ironically enough, as she continued to gaze through her opera-glass. Her remark was lost upon Lucien; the all-absorbing spectacle of the boxes prevented him from thinking of anything else. He guessed the comments made upon Mme. de Bargeton, and saw that he himself was an object of no small curiosity. Louise, on the other hand, was exceedingly mortified by the evident slight esteem in which the Marquise held Lucien’s beauty. “He cannot be so handsome as I thought him,” she said to herself; and between “not so handsome” and “not so clever as I thought him” there was but one step. The curtain fell. Châtelet was now paying a visit to the Duchesse de Carigliano in an adjourning box; Mme. de Bargeton acknowledged his bow by a slight inclination of the head. Nothing escapes a woman of the world; Châtelet’s air of distinction was not lost upon Mme. d’Espard. Just at that moment four personages, four Parisian celebrities, came into the box, one after another.