“Madame’s former waiting-maid,” Asie went on, respectfully alluding to Esther, “will receive you very comfortably this evening; and the commercial police will never think of looking for her in her old rooms which she left three months ago——”
“Feerst rate, feerst rate!” cried the Baron. “An’ besides, I know dese commercial police, an’ I know vat sorts shall make dem disappear.”
“You will find Eugenie a sharp customer,” said Asie. “I found her for madame.”
“Hah! I know her!” cried the millionaire, laughing. “She haf fleeced me out of dirty tousant franc.”
Esther shuddered with horror in a way that would have led a man of any feeling to trust her with his fortune.
“Oh, dat vas mein own fault,” the Baron said. “I vas seeking for you.”
And he related the incident that had arisen out of the letting of Esther’s rooms to the Englishwoman.
“There, now, you see, madame, Eugenie never told you all that, the sly thing!” said Asie.—“Still, madame is used to the hussy,” she added to the Baron. “Keep her on, all the same.”
She drew Nucingen aside and said:
“If you give Eugenie five hundred francs a month, which will fill up her stocking finely, you can know everything that madame does: make her the lady’s-maid. Eugenie will be all the more devoted to you since she has already done you.—Nothing attaches a woman to a man more than the fact that she has once fleeced him. But keep a tight rein on Eugenie; she will do any earthly thing for money; she is a dreadful creature!”