“What is being said, my lord, that you smile so often?” Lucien drew back discreetly, and left Mme. du Châtelet with his lordship. “Ah! Mme. la Comtesse, what a clever young fellow he is! He was explaining to me that he owed all he is to you----” “_I_ am not ungrateful, madame,” said Lucien, with a reproachful glance that charmed the Countess. “Let us have an understanding,” she said, beckoning him with her fan. “Come into the boudoir. My Lord Bishop, you shall judge between us.” “She has found a funny task for his lordship,” said one of the Chandour camp, sufficiently audibly. “Judge between us!” repeated Lucien, looking from the prelate to the lady; “then, is one of us in fault?” Louise de Nègrepelisse sat down on the sofa in the familiar boudoir. She made the Bishop sit on one side and Lucien on the other, then she began to speak. But Lucien, to the joy and surprise of his old love, honored her with inattention; her words fell unheeded on his ears; he sat like Pasta in _Tancredi_, with the words _O patria!_ upon her lips, the music of the great cavatina _Dell Rizzo_ might have passed into his face. Indeed, Coralie’s pupil had contrived to bring the tears to his eyes. “Oh! Louise, how I loved you!” he murmured, careless of the Bishop’s presence, heedless of the conversation, as soon as he knew that the Countess had seen the tears. “Dry your eyes, or you will ruin me here a second time,” she said in an aside that horrified the prelate. “And once is enough,” was Lucien’s quick retort. “That speech from Mme. d’Espard’s cousin would dry the eyes of a weeping Magdalene. Oh me! for a little moment old memories, and lost illusions, and my twentieth year came back to me, and you have----” His lordship hastily retreated to the drawing-room at this; it seemed to him that his dignity was like to be compromised by this sentimental pair. Every one ostentatiously refrained from interrupting them, and a quarter of an hour went by; till at last Sixte du Châtelet, vexed by the laughter and talk, and excursions to the boudoir door, went in with a countenance distinctly overclouded, and found Louise and Lucien talking excitedly. “Madame,” said Sixte in his wife’s ear, “you know Angoulême better than I do, and surely you should think of your position as Mme. la Préfète and of the Government?” “My dear,” said Louise, scanning her responsible editor with a haughtiness that made him quake, “I am talking with M. de Rubempré of matters which interest you. It is a question of rescuing an inventor about to fall a victim to the basest machinations; you will help us. As to those ladies yonder, and their opinion of me, you shall see how I will freeze the venom of their tongues.” She came out of the boudoir on Lucien’s arm, and drew him across to sign the contract with a great lady’s audacity. “Write your name after mine,” she said, handing him the pen. And Lucien submissively signed in the place indicated beneath her name.