“Will you do something for me that will facilitate my retreat from the Olympic circus by a fine marriage?  I will do as much for you.”

“You make me very proud; it realizes the fable of the Rat and the Lion,” said La Palferine.

“I shall begin by lending you twenty thousand francs,” continued Maxime.

“Twenty thousand francs!  I knew very well that by dint of walking up and down this boulevard—­” said La Palferine, in the style of a parenthesis.

“My dear fellow, you must put yourself on a certain footing,” said Maxime, laughing.  “Don’t go on your own two feet, have six; do as I do, I never get out of my tilbury.”

“But you must be going to ask me for something beyond my powers.”

“No, it is only to make a woman love you within a fortnight.”

“Is it a lorette?”

“Why?”

“Because that’s impossible; but if it concerns a woman, and a well-bred one who is also clever—­”

“She is a very illustrious marquise.”

“You want her letters?” said the young count.

“Ah! you are after my own heart!” cried Maxime.  “No, that’s not it.”

“Then you want me to love her?”

“Yes, in the real sense—­”

“If I am to abandon the aesthetic, it is utterly impossible,” said La Palferine.  “I have, don’t you see, as to women a certain honor; we may play the fool with them, but not—­”

“Ah!  I was not mistaken!” cried Maxime.  “Do you think I’m a man to propose mere twopenny infamies to you?  No, you must go, and dazzle, and conquer.  My good mate, I give you twenty thousand francs, and ten days in which to triumph.  Meet me to-night at Madame Schontz’.”

“I dine there.”

“Very good,” returned Maxime.  “Later, when you have need of me, Monsieur le comte, you will find me,” he added in the tone of a king who binds himself, but promises nothing.

“This poor woman must have done you some deadly harm,” said La Palferine.

“Don’t try to throw a plummet-line into my waters, my boy; and let me tell you that in case of success you will obtain such powerful influence that you will be able, like me, to retire upon a fine marriage when you are bored with your bohemian life.”

“Comes there a time when it is a bore to amuse one’s self,” said La Palferine, “to be nothing, to live like the birds, to hunt the fields of Paris like a savage, and laugh at everything?”

“All things weary, even hell,” said de Trailles, laughing.  “Well, this evening.”

The two roues, the old and the young, rose.  As Maxime got into his one-horse equipage, he thought to himself:  “Madame d’Espard can’t endure Beatrix; she will help me.  Hotel de Grandlieu,” he called out to the coachman, observing that Rastignac was just passing him.

Find a great man without some weakness!

The duchess, Madame du Guenic, and Clotilde were evidently weeping.