Delphine de Nucingen, and her daughter Augusta, whom the Baroness was now taking out, did not at first perceive the change that had come over the Baron.  The mother and daughter only saw him at breakfast in the morning and at dinner in the evening, when they all dined at home, and this was only on the evenings when Delphine received company.  But by the end of two months, tortured by a fever of impatience, and in a state like that produced by acute home-sickness, the Baron, amazed to find his millions impotent, grew so thin, and seemed so seriously ill, that Delphine had secret hopes of finding herself a widow.  She pitied her husband, somewhat hypocritically, and kept her daughter in seclusion.  She bored her husband with questions; he answered as Englishmen answer when suffering from spleen, hardly a word.

Delphine de Nucingen gave a grand dinner every Sunday.  She had chosen that day for her receptions, after observing that no people of fashion went to the play, and that the day was pretty generally an open one.  The emancipation of the shopkeeping and middle classes makes Sunday almost as tiresome in Paris as it is deadly in London.  So the Baroness invited the famous Desplein to dinner, to consult him in spite of the sick man, for Nucingen persisted in asserting that he was perfectly well.

Keller, Rastignac, de Marsay, du Tillet, all their friends had made the Baroness understand that a man like Nucingen could not be allowed to die without any notice being taken of it; his enormous business transactions demanded some care; it was absolutely necessary to know where he stood.  These gentlemen also were asked to dinner, and the Comte de Gondreville, Francois Keller’s father-in-law, the Chevalier d’Espard, des Lupeaulx, Doctor Bianchon—­Desplein’s best beloved pupil —­Beaudenord and his wife, the Comte and Comtesse de Montcornet, Blondet, Mademoiselle des Touches and Conti, and finally, Lucien de Rubempre, for whom Rastignac had for the last five years manifested the warmest regard—­by order, as the advertisements have it.

“We shall not find it easy to get rid of that young fellow,” said Blondet to Rastignac, when he saw Lucien come in handsomer than ever, and uncommonly well dressed.

“It is wiser to make friends with him, for he is formidable,” said Rastignac.

“He?” said de Marsay.  “No one is formidable to my knowledge but men whose position is assured, and his is unattacked rather than attackable!  Look here, what does he live on?  Where does his money come from?  He has, I am certain, sixty thousand francs in debts.”

“He has found a friend in a very rich Spanish priest who has taken a fancy to him,” replied Rastignac.

“He is going to be married to the eldest Mademoiselle de Grandlieu,” said Mademoiselle des Touches.

“Yes,” said the Chevalier d’Espard, “but they require him to buy an estate worth thirty thousand francs a year as security for the fortune he is to settle on the young lady, and for that he needs a million francs, which are not to be found in any Spaniard’s shoes.”