“That is my intention,” said Esther.  “And I will never again say anything to distress you, my pet elephant, for you are grown as artless as a baby.  Bless me, you old rascal, you have never known any innocence; the allowance bestowed on you when you came into the world was bound to come to the top some day; but it was buried so deep that it is only now reappearing at the age of sixty-six.  Fished up by love’s barbed hook.—­This phenomenon is seen in old men.

“And this is why I have learned to love you, you are young—­so young!  No one but I would ever have known this, Frederic—­I alone.  For you were a banker at fifteen; even at college you must have lent your school-fellows one marble on condition of their returning two.”

Seeing him laugh, she sprang on to his knee.

“Well, you must do as you please!  Bless me! plunder the men—­go ahead, and I will help.  Men are not worth loving; Napoleon killed them off like flies.  Whether they pay taxes to you or to the Government, what difference does it make to them?  You don’t make love over the budget, and on my honor!—­go ahead, I have thought it over, and you are right.  Shear the sheep! you will find it in the gospel according to Beranger.

“Now, kiss your Esther.—­I say, you will give that poor Val-Noble all the furniture in the Rue Taitbout?  And to-morrow I wish you would give her fifty thousand francs—­it would look handsome, my duck.  You see, you killed Falleix; people are beginning to cry out upon you, and this liberality will look Babylonian—­all the women will talk about it!  Oh! there will be no one in Paris so grand, so noble as you; and as the world is constituted, Falleix will be forgotten.  So, after all, it will be money deposited at interest.”

“You are right, mein anchel; you know the vorld,” he replied.  “You shall be mein adfiser.”

“Well, you see,” said Esther, “how I study my man’s interest, his position and honor.—­Go at once and bring those fifty thousand francs.”

She wanted to get rid of Monsieur de Nucingen so as to get a stockbroker to sell the bond that very afternoon.

“But vy dis minute?” asked he.

“Bless me, my sweetheart, you must give it to her in a little satin box wrapped round a fan.  You must say, ’Here, madame, is a fan which I hope may be to your taste.’—­You are supposed to be a Turcaret, and you will become a Beaujon.”

“Charming, charming!” cried the Baron.  “I shall be so clever henceforth.—­Yes, I shall repeat your vorts.”

Just as Esther had sat down, tired with the effort of playing her part, Europe came in.

“Madame,” said she, “here is a messenger sent from the Quai Malaquais by Celestin, M. Lucien’s servant——­”

“Bring him in—­no, I will go into the ante-room.”

“He has a letter for you, madame, from Celestin.”

Esther rushed into the ante-room, looked at the messenger, and saw that he looked like the genuine thing.