“Well, Rastignac, have you seen Lucien?  He has come out in a new skin.”

“If I were half as good looking as he is, I should be twice as rich,” replied the fine gentleman, in a light but meaning tone, expressive of keen raillery.

“No!” said the fat mask in his ear, repaying a thousand ironies in one by the accent he lent the monosyllable.

Rastignac, who was not the man to swallow an affront, stood as if struck by lightning, and allowed himself to be led into a recess by a grasp of iron which he could not shake off.

“You young cockerel, hatched in Mother Vauquer’s coop—­you, whose heart failed you to clutch old Taillefer’s millions when the hardest part of the business was done—­let me tell you, for your personal safety, that if you do not treat Lucien like the brother you love, you are in our power, while we are not in yours.  Silence and submission! or I shall join your game and upset the skittles.  Lucien de Rubempre is under the protection of the strongest power of the day—­the Church.  Choose between life and death—­Answer.”

Rastignac felt giddy, like a man who has slept in a forest and wakes to see by his side a famishing lioness.  He was frightened, and there was no one to see him; the boldest men yield to fear under such circumstances.

“No one but he can know—­or would dare——­” he murmured to himself.

The mask clutched his hand tighter to prevent his finishing his sentence.

“Act as if I were he,” he said.

Rastignac then acted like a millionaire on the highroad with a brigand’s pistol at his head; he surrendered.

“My dear Count,” said he to du Chatelet, to whom he presently returned, “if you care for your position in life, treat Lucien de Rubempre as a man whom you will one day see holding a place far above where you stand.”

The mask made a imperceptible gesture of approbation, and went off in search of Lucien.

“My dear fellow, you have changed your opinion of him very suddenly,” replied the Prefet with justifiable surprise.

“As suddenly as men change who belong to the centre and vote with the right,” replied Rastignac to the Prefet-Depute, whose vote had for a few days failed to support the Ministry.

“Are there such things as opinions nowadays?  There are only interests,” observed des Lupeaulx, who had heard them.  “What is the case in point?”

“The case of the Sieur de Rubempre, whom Rastignac is setting up as a person of consequence,” said du Chatelet to the Secretary-General.

“My dear Count,” replied des Lupeaulx very seriously, “Monsieur de Rubempre is a young man of the highest merit, and has such good interest at his back that I should be delighted to renew my acquaintance with him.”

“There he is, rushing into the wasps’ nest of the rakes of the day,” said Rastignac.

The three speakers looked towards a corner where a group of recognized wits had gathered, men of more or less celebrity, and several men of fashion.  These gentlemen made common stock of their jests, their remarks, and their scandal, trying to amuse themselves till something should amuse them.  Among this strangely mingled party were some men with whom Lucien had had transactions, combining ostensibly kind offices with covert false dealing.