“Look here, my dear; that man, you may depend, has laid a bet that he will make a woman hate him and pack him off in a certain time.”
“Or else he wants to do business with Nucingen, and took me up knowing that you and I were friends; that is what Adele thinks,” answered Madame du Val-Noble. “That is why I introduced him to you this evening. Oh, if only I could be sure what he is at, what tricks I could play with you and Nucingen!”
“And you don’t get angry?” asked Esther; “you don’t speak your mind now and then?”
“Try it—you are sharp and smooth.—Well, in spite of your sweetness, he would kill you with his icy smiles. ‘I am anti-slavery,’ he would say, ‘and you are free.’—If you said the funniest things, he would only look at you and say, ‘Very good!’ and you would see that he regards you merely as a part of the show.”
“And if you turned furious?”
“The same thing; it would still be a show. You might cut him open under the left breast without hurting him in the least; his internals are of tinned-iron, I am sure. I told him so. He replied, ‘I am quite satisfied with that physical constitution.’
“And always polite. My dear, he wears gloves on his soul...
“I shall endure this martyrdom for a few days longer to satisfy my curiosity. But for that, I should have made Philippe slap my lord’s cheek—and he has not his match as a swordsman. There is nothing else left for it——”
“I was just going to say so,” cried Esther. “But you must ascertain first that Philippe is a boxer; for these old English fellows, my dear, have a depth of malignity——”
“This one has no match on earth. No, if you could but see him asking my commands, to know at what hour he may come—to take me by surprise, of course—and pouring out respectful speeches like a so-called gentleman, you would say, ‘Why, he adores her!’ and there is not a woman in the world who would not say the same.”