“This young man is a speckled orange; do not leave it to rot.

“All this will take you about half an hour; go and get it done; we will wait for you.  It is half-past three; you will find some judges about.  Let me know if you can get a rule of insufficient evidence—­or Lucien must wait till to-morrow morning.”

Camusot bowed to the company and went; but Madame de Serizy, who was suffering a good deal from her burns, did not return his bow.

Monsieur de Serizy, who had suddenly rushed away while the public prosecutor and the magistrate were talking together, presently returned, having fetched a small jar of virgin wax.  With this he dressed his wife’s fingers, saying in an undertone: 

“Leontine, why did you come here without letting me know?”

“My dear,” replied she in a whisper, “forgive me.  I seem mad, but indeed your interests were as much involved as mine.”

“Love this young fellow if fatality requires it, but do not display your passion to all the world,” said the luckless husband.

“Well, my dear Countess,” said Monsieur de Granville, who had been engaged in conversation with Comte Octave, “I hope you may take Monsieur de Rubempre home to dine with you this evening.”

This half promise produced a reaction; Madame de Serizy melted into tears.

“I thought I had no tears left,” said she with a smile.  “But could you not bring Monsieur de Rubempre to wait here?”

“I will try if I can find the ushers to fetch him, so that he may not be seen under the escort of the gendarmes,” said Monsieur de Granville.

“You are as good as God!” cried she, with a gush of feeling that made her voice sound like heavenly music.

“These are the women,” said Comte Octave, “who are fascinating, irresistible!”

And he became melancholy as he thought of his own wife. (See Honorine.)

As he left the room, Monsieur de Granville was stopped by young Chargeboeuf, to whom he spoke to give him instructions as to what he was to say to Massol, one of the editors of the Gazette des Tribunaux.

While beauties, ministers, and magistrates were conspiring to save Lucien, this was what he was doing at the Conciergerie.  As he passed the gate the poet told the keeper that Monsieur Camusot had granted him leave to write, and he begged to have pens, ink, and paper.  At a whispered word to the Governor from Camusot’s usher a warder was instructed to take them to him at once.  During the short time that it took for the warder to fetch these things and carry them up to Lucien, the hapless young man, to whom the idea of facing Jacques Collin had become intolerable, sank into one of those fatal moods in which the idea of suicide—­to which he had yielded before now, but without succeeding in carrying it out—­rises to the pitch of mania.  According to certain mad-doctors, suicide is in some temperaments the closing phase of mental aberration; and since his arrest Lucien had been possessed by that single idea.  Esther’s letter, read and reread many times, increased the vehemence of his desire to die by reminding him of the catastrophe of Romeo dying to be with Juliet.