“We will study that side of the subject,” cried Corentin. “For the present, I am out of work. You, Peyrade, be a very good boy. We must always obey Monsieur le Prefet!” “Monsieur de Nucingen wants bleeding,” said Contenson; “he has too many banknotes in his veins.” “But it was Lydie’s marriage-portion I looked for there!” said Peyrade, in a whisper to Corentin. “Now, come along, Contenson, let us be off, and leave our daddy to by-bye, by-bye!” “Monsieur,” said Contenson to Corentin on the doorstep, “what a queer piece of brokerage our good friend was planning! Heh!--What, marry a daughter with the price of----Ah, ha! It would make a pretty little play, and very moral too, entitled ‘A Girl’s Dower.’” “You are highly organized animals, indeed,” replied Corentin. “What ears you have! Certainly Social Nature arms all her species with the qualities needed for the duties she expects of them! Society is second nature.” “That is a highly philosophical view to take,” cried Contenson. “A professor would work it up into a system.” “Let us find out all we can,” replied Corentin with a smile, as he made his way down the street with the spy, “as to what goes on at Monsieur de Nucingen’s with regard to this girl--the main facts; never mind the details----” “Just watch to see if his chimneys are smoking!” said Contenson. “Such a man as the Baron de Nucingen cannot be happy incognito,” replied Corentin. “And besides, we for whom men are but cards, ought never to be tricked by them.” “By gad! it would be the condemned jail-bird amusing himself by cutting the executioner’s throat.” “You always have something droll to say,” replied Corentin, with a dim smile, that faintly wrinkled his set white face. This business was exceedingly important in itself, apart from its consequences. If it were not the Baron who had betrayed Peyrade, who could have had any interest in seeing the Prefet of Police? From Corentin’s point of view it seemed suspicious. Were there any traitors among his men? And as he went to bed, he wondered what Peyrade, too, was considering. “Who can have gone to complain to the Prefet? Whom does the woman belong to?” And thus, without knowing each other, Jacques Collin, Peyrade, and Corentin were converging to a common point; while the unhappy Esther, Nucingen, and Lucien were inevitably entangled in the struggle which had already begun, and of which the point of pride, peculiar to police agents, was making a war to the death. Thanks to Europe’s cleverness, the more pressing half of the sixty thousand francs of debt owed by Esther and Lucien was paid off. The creditors did not even lose confidence. Lucien and his evil genius could breathe for a moment. Like some pool, they could start again along the edge of the precipice where the strong man was guiding the weak man to the gibbet or to fortune. “We are staking now,” said Carlos to his puppet, “to win or lose all. But, happily, the cards are beveled, and the punters young.”