“If I try hysterics and feel ill, he is never vexed; he only says:  ’I wish my lady to have her own way, for there is nothing more detestable —­no gentleman—­than to say to a nice woman, “You are a cotton bale, a bundle of merchandise.”—­Ha, hah!  Are you a member of the Temperance Society and anti-slavery?’ And my horror sits pale, and cold, and hard while he gives me to understand that he has as much respect for me as he might have for a Negro, and that it has nothing to do with his feelings, but with his opinions as an abolitionist.”

“A man cannot be a worse wretch,” said Esther.  “But I will smash up that outlandish Chinee.”

“Smash him up?” replied Madame du Val-Noble.  “Not if he does not love me.  You, yourself, would you like to ask him for two sous?  He would listen to you solemnly, and tell you, with British precision that would make a slap in the face seem genial, that he pays dear enough for the trifle that love can be to his poor life;” and, as before, Madame du Val-Noble mimicked Peyrade’s bad French.

“To think that in our line of life we are thrown in the way of such men!” exclaimed Esther.

“Oh, my dear, you have been uncommonly lucky.  Take good care of your Nucingen.”

“But your nabob must have got some idea in his head.”

“That is what Adele says.”

“Look here, my dear; that man, you may depend, has laid a bet that he will make a woman hate him and pack him off in a certain time.”

“Or else he wants to do business with Nucingen, and took me up knowing that you and I were friends; that is what Adele thinks,” answered Madame du Val-Noble.  “That is why I introduced him to you this evening.  Oh, if only I could be sure what he is at, what tricks I could play with you and Nucingen!”

“And you don’t get angry?” asked Esther; “you don’t speak your mind now and then?”

“Try it—­you are sharp and smooth.—­Well, in spite of your sweetness, he would kill you with his icy smiles.  ‘I am anti-slavery,’ he would say, ’and you are free.’—­If you said the funniest things, he would only look at you and say, ‘Very good!’ and you would see that he regards you merely as a part of the show.”

“And if you turned furious?”

“The same thing; it would still be a show.  You might cut him open under the left breast without hurting him in the least; his internals are of tinned-iron, I am sure.  I told him so.  He replied, ’I am quite satisfied with that physical constitution.’

“And always polite.  My dear, he wears gloves on his soul . . .

“I shall endure this martyrdom for a few days longer to satisfy my curiosity.  But for that, I should have made Philippe slap my lord’s cheek—­and he has not his match as a swordsman.  There is nothing else left for it——­”

“I was just going to say so,” cried Esther.  “But you must ascertain first that Philippe is a boxer; for these old English fellows, my dear, have a depth of malignity——­”