“It would be a pretty thing,” she said, “if Rastignac, Maxime de Trailles, d’Esgrignon, La Roche-Hugon, Ronqueroles, Laginski, Lenoncourt, found you with a sort of Madame Everard.  Besides, have confidence in me, papa, and you’ll be the gainer.”

In fact, Aurelie contrived to display new virtues in this second phase.  She laid out for herself a house-keeping role for which she claimed much credit.  She made, so she said, both ends meet at the close of the month on two thousand five hundred francs without a debt, —­a thing unheard of in the faubourg Saint-Germain of the 13th arrondissement,—­and she served dinners infinitely superior to those of Nucingen, at which exquisite wines were drunk at twelve francs a bottle.  Rochefide, amazed, and delighted to be able to invite his friends to the house with economy, declared, as he caught her round the waist,—­

“She’s a treasure!”

Soon after he hired one-third of a box at the Opera for her; next he took her to first representations.  Then he began to consult his Aurelie, and recognized the excellence of her advice.  She let him take the clever sayings she said about most things for his own, and, these being unknown to others, raised his reputation as an amusing man.  He now acquired the certainty of being loved truly, and for himself alone.  Aurelie refused to make the happiness of a Russian prince who offered her five thousand francs a month.

“You are a lucky man, my dear marquis,” cried old Prince Galathionne as he finished his game of whist at the club.  “Yesterday, after you left us alone, I tried to get Madame Schontz away from you, but she said:  ’Prince, you are not handsomer, but you are a great deal older than Rochefide; you would beat me, but he is like a father to me; can you give me one-tenth of a reason why I should change?  I’ve never had the grand passion for Arthur that I once had for little fools in varnished boots and whose debts I paid; but I love him as a wife loves her husband when she is an honest woman.’  And thereupon she showed me the door.”

This speech, which did not seem exaggerated, had the effect of greatly increasing the state of neglect and degradation which reigned in the hotel de Rochefide.  Arthur now transported his whole existence and his pleasures to Madame Schontz, and found himself well off; for at the end of three years he had four hundred thousand francs to invest.

The third phase now began.  Madame Schontz became the tenderest of mothers to Arthur’s son; she fetched him from school and took him back herself; she overwhelmed with presents and dainties and pocket-money the child who called her his “little mamma,” and who adored her.  She took part in the management of Arthur’s property; she made him buy into the Funds when low, just before the famous treaty of London which overturned the ministry of March 1st.  Arthur gained two hundred thousand francs by that transaction and Aurelie did not ask for a penny of it.  Like the gentleman that he was, Rochefide invested his six hundred thousand francs in stock of the Bank of France and put half of that sum in the name of Josephine Schiltz.  A little house was now hired in the rue de La Bruyere and given to Grindot, that great decorative architect, with orders to make it a perfect bonbon-box.