“Oh! Louise, how I loved you!” he murmured, careless of the Bishop’s presence, heedless of the conversation, as soon as he knew that the Countess had seen the tears.
“Dry your eyes, or you will ruin me here a second time,” she said in an aside that horrified the prelate.
“And once is enough,” was Lucien’s quick retort. “That speech from Mme. d’Espard’s cousin would dry the eyes of a weeping Magdalene. Oh me! for a little moment old memories, and lost illusions, and my twentieth year came back to me, and you have——”
His lordship hastily retreated to the drawing-room at this; it seemed to him that his dignity was like to be compromised by this sentimental pair. Every one ostentatiously refrained from interrupting them, and a quarter of an hour went by; till at last Sixte du Châtelet, vexed by the laughter and talk, and excursions to the boudoir door, went in with a countenance distinctly overclouded, and found Louise and Lucien talking excitedly.
“Madame,” said Sixte in his wife’s ear, “you know Angoulême better than I do, and surely you should think of your position as Mme. la Préfète and of the Government?”
“My dear,” said Louise, scanning her responsible editor with a haughtiness that made him quake, “I am talking with M. de Rubempré of matters which interest you. It is a question of rescuing an inventor about to fall a victim to the basest machinations; you will help us. As to those ladies yonder, and their opinion of me, you shall see how I will freeze the venom of their tongues.”
She came out of the boudoir on Lucien’s arm, and drew him across to sign the contract with a great lady’s audacity.
“Write your name after mine,” she said, handing him the pen. And Lucien submissively signed in the place indicated beneath her name.
“M. de Senonches, would you have recognized M. de Rubempré?” she continued, and the insolent sportsman was compelled to greet Lucien.
She returned to the drawing-room on Lucien’s arm, and seated him on the awe-inspiring central sofa between herself and Zéphirine. There, enthroned like a queen, she began, at first in a low voice, a conversation in which epigram evidently was not wanting. Some of her old friends, and several women who paid court to her, came to join the group, and Lucien soon became the hero of the circle. The Countess drew him out on the subject of life in Paris; his satirical talk flowed with spontaneous and incredible spirit; he told anecdotes of celebrities, those conversational luxuries which the provincial devours with such avidity. His wit was as much admired as his good looks. And Mme. la Comtesse Sixte du Châtelet, preparing Lucien’s triumph so patiently, sat like a player enraptured with the sound of his instrument; she gave him opportunities for a reply; she looked round the circle for applause so openly, that not a few of the women began to think that their return together was something more than a coincidence, and that Lucien and Louise, loving with all their hearts, had been separated by a double treason. Pique, very likely, had brought about this ill-starred match with Châtelet. And a reaction set in against the prefect.