“And that one,” said Lucien, smiling, “is uncommonly like yours.”
“And them,” said Esther, answering Lucien with another look of intelligence, while still speaking to the Baron, “bring her here with her nabob; he is very anxious to make your acquaintance. They say he is very rich. The poor woman has already poured out I know not how many elegies; she complains that her nabob is no good; and if you relieve him of his ballast, perhaps he will sail closer to the wind.”
“You tink ve are all tieves!” said the Baron as he went away.
“What ails you, my Lucien?” asked Esther in her friend’s ear, just touching it with her lips as soon as the box door was shut.
“I am lost! I have just been turned from the door of the Hotel de Grandlieu under pretence that no one was admitted. The Duke and Duchess were at home, and five pairs of horses were champing in the courtyard.”
“What! will the marriage not take place?” exclaimed Esther, much agitated, for she saw a glimpse of Paradise.
“I do not yet know what is being plotted against me——”
“My Lucien,” said she in a deliciously coaxing voice, “why be worried about it? You can make a better match by and by—I will get you the price of two estates——”
“Give us supper to-night that I may be able to speak in secret to Carlos, and, above all, invite the sham Englishman and Val-Noble. That nabob is my ruin; he is our enemy; we will get hold of him, and we——”
But Lucien broke off with a gesture of despair.