By this time the Marquise had made an end of trifling disdainfully with the wing of a chicken.

“My poor Louise felt so much affection for you,” she said.  “She took me into her confidence; I knew her dreams of a great career for you.  She would have borne a great deal, but what scorn you showed her when you sent back her letters!  Cruelty we can forgive; those who hurt us must have still some faith in us; but indifference!  Indifference is like polar snows, it extinguishes all life.  So, you must see that you have lost a precious affection through your own fault.  Why break with her?  Even if she had scorned you, you had your way to make, had you not?—­your name to win back?  Louise thought of all that.”

“Then why was she silent?”

“Eh! mon Dieu!” cried the Marquise, “it was I myself who advised her not to take you into her confidence.  Between ourselves, you know, you seemed so little used to the ways of the world, that I took alarm.  I was afraid that your inexperience and rash ardor might wreck our carefully-made schemes.  Can you recollect yourself as you were then?  You must admit that if you could see your double to-day, you would say the same yourself.  You are not like the same man.  That was our mistake.  But would one man in a thousand combine such intellectual gifts with such wonderful aptitude for taking the tone of society?  I did not think that you would be such an astonishing exception.  You were transformed so quickly, you acquired the manner of Paris so easily, that I did not recognize you in the Bois de Boulogne a month ago.”

Lucien heard the great lady with inexpressible pleasure; the flatteries were spoken with such a petulant, childlike, confiding air, and she seemed to take such a deep interest in him, that he thought of his first evening at the Panorama-Dramatique, and began to fancy that some such miracle was about to take place a second time.  Everything had smiled upon him since that happy evening; his youth, he thought, was the talisman that worked this change.  He would prove this great lady; she should not take him unawares.

“Then, what were these schemes which have turned to chimeras, madame?” asked he.

“Louise meant to obtain a royal patent permitting you to bear the name and title of Rubempre.  She wished to put Chardon out of sight.  Your opinions have put that out of the question now, but then it would not have been so hard to manage, and a title would mean a fortune for you.

“You will look on these things as trifles and visionary ideas,” she continued; “but we know something of life, and we know, too, all the solid advantages of a Count’s title when it is borne by a fashionable and extremely charming young man.  Announce ‘M.  Chardon’ and ’M. le Comte de Rubempre’ before heiresses or English girls with a million to their fortune, and note the difference of the effect.  The Count might be in debt, but he would find open hearts; his