“Very well, do me the pleasure of dining with me on Monday with M. de Rubempré, and you can talk of matters literary at your ease. I will try to enlist some of the tyrants of the world of letters and the great people who protect them, the author of Ourika, and one or two young poets with sound views.”
“Mme. la Marquise,” said de Marsay, “if you give your support to this gentleman for his intellect, I will support him for his good looks. I will give him advice which will put him in a fair way to be the luckiest dandy in Paris. After that, he may be a poet—if he has a mind.”
Mme. de Bargeton thanked her cousin by a grateful glance.
“I did not know that you were jealous of intellect,” Montriveau said, turning to de Marsay; “good fortune is the death of a poet.”
“Is that why your lordship is thinking of marriage?” inquired the dandy, addressing Canalis, and watching Mme. d’Espard to see if the words went home.
Canalis shrugged his shoulders, and Mme. d’Espard, Mme. de Chaulieu’s niece, began to laugh. Lucien in his new clothes felt as if he were an Egyptian statue in its narrow sheath; he was ashamed that he had nothing to say for himself all this while. At length he turned to the Marquise.
“After all your kindness, madame, I am pledged to make no failures,” he said in those soft tones of his.
Châtelet came in as he spoke; he had seen Montriveau, and by hook or crook snatched at the chance of a good introduction to the Marquise d’Espard through one of the kings of Paris. He bowed to Mme. de Bargeton, and begged Mme. d’Espard to pardon him for the liberty he took in invading her box; he had been separated so long from his traveling companion! Montriveau and Châtelet met for the first time since they parted in the desert.
“To part in the desert, and meet again in the opera-house!” said Lucien.
“Quite a theatrical meeting!” said Canalis.