“Carlos?” said Contenson, “he is in Spain.”

“He is in Paris,” said Corentin positively.  “There is a touch of Spanish genius of the Philip II. type in all this; but I have pitfalls for everybody, even for kings.”

Five days after the nabob’s disappearance, Madame du Val-Noble was sitting by Esther’s bedside weeping, for she felt herself on one of the slopes down to poverty.

“If I only had at least a hundred louis a year!  With that sum, my dear, a woman can retire to some little town and find a husband——­”

“I can get you as much as that,” said Esther.

“How?” cried Madame du Val-Noble.

“Oh, in a very simple way.  Listen.  You must plan to kill yourself; play your part well.  Send for Asie and offer her ten thousand francs for two black beads of very thin glass containing a poison which kills you in a second.  Bring them to me, and I will give you fifty thousand francs for them.”

“Why do you not ask her for them yourself?” said her friend.

“Asie would not sell them to me.”

“They are not for yourself?” asked Madame du Val-Noble.

“Perhaps.”

“You! who live in the midst of pleasure and luxury, in a house of your own?  And on the eve of an entertainment which will be the talk of Paris for ten years—­which is to cost Nucingen twenty thousand francs!  There are to be strawberries in mid-February, they say, asparagus, grapes, melons!—­and a thousand crowns’ worth of flowers in the rooms.”

“What are you talking about?  There are a thousand crowns’ worth of roses on the stairs alone.”

“And your gown is said to have cost ten thousand francs?”

“Yes, it is of Brussels point, and Delphine, his wife, is furious.  But I had a fancy to be disguised as a bride.”

“Where are the ten thousand francs?” asked Madame du Val-Noble.

“It is all the ready money I have,” said Esther, smiling.  “Open my table drawer; it is under the curl-papers.”

“People who talk of dying never kill themselves,” said Madame du Val-Noble.  “If it were to commit——­”

“A crime?  For shame!” said Esther, finishing her friend’s thought, as she hesitated.  “Be quite easy, I have no intention of killing anybody.  I had a friend—­a very happy woman; she is dead, I must follow her —­that is all.”

“How foolish!”

“How can I help it?  I promised her I would.”

“I should let that bill go dishonored,” said her friend, smiling.

“Do as I tell you, and go at once.  I hear a carriage coming.  It is Nucingen, a man who will go mad with joy!  Yes, he loves me!—­Why do we not love those who love us, for indeed they do all they can to please us?”

“Ah, that is the question!” said Madame du Val-Noble.  “It is the old story of the herring, which is the most puzzling fish that swims.”

“Why?”

“Well, no one could ever find out.”