“Quite gay?” replied Lucien. “No--only by the merest chance I have been dining every day this week with bankers; to-day with the Nucingens, yesterday with du Tillet, the day before with the Kellers----” Whence, it may be seen, that Lucien had succeeded in assuming the tone of light impertinence of great people. “You have many enemies,” said Clotilde, offering him--how graciously!--a cup of tea. “Some one told my father that you have debts to the amount of sixty thousand francs, and that before long Sainte-Pelagie will be your summer quarters.--If you could know what all these calumnies are to me!--It all recoils on me.--I say nothing of my own suffering--my father has a way of looking that crucifies me--but of what you must be suffering if any least part of it should be the truth.” “Do not let such nonsense worry you; love me as I love you, and give me time--a few months----” said Lucien, replacing his empty cup on the silver tray. “Do not let my father see you; he would say something disagreeable; and as you could not submit to that, we should be done for.--That odious Marquise d’Espard told him that your mother had been a monthly nurse and that your sister did ironing----” “We were in the most abject poverty,” replied Lucien, the tears rising to his eyes. “That is not calumny, but it is most ill-natured gossip. My sister now is a more than millionaire, and my mother has been dead two years.--This information has been kept in stock to use just when I should be on the verge of success here----” “But what have you done to Madame d’Espard?” “I was so rash, at Madame de Serizy’s, as to tell the story, with some added pleasantries, in the presence of MM. de Bauvan and de Granville, of her attempt to get a commission of lunacy appointed to sit on her husband, the Marquis d’Espard. Bianchon had told it to me. Monsieur de Granville’s opinion, supported by those of Bauvan and Serizy, influenced the decision of the Keeper of the Seals. They all were afraid of the _Gazette des Tribunaux_, and dreaded the scandal, and the Marquise got her knuckles rapped in the summing up for the judgment finally recorded in that miserable business. “Though M. de Serizy by his tattle has made the Marquise my mortal foe, I gained his good offices, and those of the Public Prosecutor, and Comte Octave de Bauvan; for Madame de Serizy told them the danger in which I stood in consequence of their allowing the source of their information to be guessed at. The Marquis d’Espard was so clumsy as to call upon me, regarding me as the first cause of his winning the day in that atrocious suit.” “I will rescue you from Madame d’Espard,” said Clotilde. “How?” cried Lucien. “My mother will ask the young d’Espards here; they are charming boys, and growing up now. The father and sons will sing your praises, and then we are sure never to see their mother again.” “Oh, Clotilde, you are an angel! If I did not love you for yourself, I should love you for being so clever.”