be his turn by and by, when he should turn a face lighted up with poetry upon the assembly; but this prospect did not prevent him from feeling the sharp pang that succeeded to the uncomfortable sense of M. de Bargeton’s imagined hostility.  The Baron seemed to bring all the weight of his fortune to bear upon him, the better to humiliate him in his poverty.  M. de Bargeton had counted on having no more to say, and his soul was dismayed by the pause spent by the rivals in mutual survey; he had a question which he kept for desperate emergencies, laid up in his mind, as it were, against a rainy day.  Now was the proper time to bring it out.

“Well, monsieur,” he said, looking at Chatelet with an important air, “is there anything fresh? anything that people are talking about?”

“Why, the latest thing is M. Chardon,” Chatelet said maliciously.  “Ask him.  Have you brought some charming poet for us?” inquired the vivacious Baron, adjusting the side curl that had gone astray on his temple.

“I should have asked you whether I had succeeded,” Lucien answered; “you have been before me in the field of verse.”

“Pshaw!” said the other, “a few vaudevilles, well enough in their way, written to oblige, a song now and again to suit some occasion, lines for music, no good without the music, and my long Epistle to a Sister of Bonaparte (ungrateful that he was), will not hand down my name to posterity.”

At this moment Mme. de Bargeton appeared in all the glory of an elaborate toilette.  She wore a Jewess’ turban, enriched with an Eastern clasp.  The cameos on her neck gleamed through the gauze scarf gracefully wound about her shoulders; the sleeves of her printed muslin dress were short so as to display a series of bracelets on her shapely white arms.  Lucien was charmed with this theatrical style of dress.  M. du Chatelet gallantly plied the queen with fulsome compliments, that made her smile with pleasure; she was so glad to be praised in Lucien’s hearing.  But she scarcely gave her dear poet a glance, and met Chatelet with a mortifying civility that kept him at a distance.

By this time the guests began to arrive.  First and foremost appeared the Bishop and his Vicar-General, dignified and reverend figures both, though no two men could well be more unlike, his lordship being tall and attenuated, and his acolyte short and fat.  Both churchmen’s eyes were bright; but while the Bishop was pallid, his Vicar-General’s countenance glowed with high health.  Both were impassive, and gesticulated but little; both appeared to be prudent men, and their silence and reserve were supposed to hide great intellectual powers.