Involuntarily, and despite the novel counter fascination of the stage, his eyes turned to the Célimène in her splendor; he glanced furtively at her every moment; the longer he looked, the more he desired to look at her. Mme. de Bargeton caught the gleam in Lucien’s eyes, and saw that he found the Marquise more interesting than the opera. If Lucien had forsaken her for the fifty daughters of Danaus, she could have borne his desertion with equanimity; but another glance—bolder, more ardent and unmistakable than any before—revealed the state of Lucien’s feelings. She grew jealous, but not so much for the future as for the past.
“He never gave me such a look,” she thought. “Dear me! Châtelet was right!”
Then she saw that she had made a mistake; and when a woman once begins to repent of her weaknesses, she sponges out the whole past. Every one of Lucien’s glances roused her indignation, but to all outward appearance she was calm. De Marsay came back in the interval, bringing M. de Listomère with him; and that serious person and the young coxcomb soon informed the Marquise that the wedding guest in his holiday suit, whom she had the bad luck to have in her box, had as much right to the appellation of Rubempré as a Jew to a baptismal name. Lucien’s father was an apothecary named Chardon. M. de Rastignac, who knew all about Angoulême, had set several boxes laughing already at the mummy whom the Marquise styled her cousin, and at the Marquise’s forethought in having an apothecary at hand to sustain an artificial life with drugs. In short, de Marsay brought a selection from the thousand-and-one jokes made by Parisians on the spur of the moment, and no sooner uttered than forgotten. Châtelet was at the back of it all, and the real author of this Punic faith.
Mme. d’Espard turned to Mme. de Bargeton, put up her fan, and said, “My dear, tell me if your protégé’s name is really M. de Rubempré?”
“He has assumed his mother’s name,” said Anaïs, uneasily.
“But who was his father?”
“His father’s name was Chardon.”
“And what was this Chardon?”
“A druggist.”
“My dear friend, I felt quite sure that all Paris could not be laughing at any one whom I took up. I do not care to stay here when wags come in in high glee because there is an apothecary’s son in my box. If you will follow my advice, we will leave it, and at once.”