“No!” said the fat mask in his ear, repaying a thousand ironies in one by the accent he lent the monosyllable.
Rastignac, who was not the man to swallow an affront, stood as if struck by lightning, and allowed himself to be led into a recess by a grasp of iron which he could not shake off.
“You young cockerel, hatched in Mother Vauquer’s coop—you, whose heart failed you to clutch old Taillefer’s millions when the hardest part of the business was done—let me tell you, for your personal safety, that if you do not treat Lucien like the brother you love, you are in our power, while we are not in yours. Silence and submission! or I shall join your game and upset the skittles. Lucien de Rubempre is under the protection of the strongest power of the day—the Church. Choose between life and death—Answer.”
Rastignac felt giddy, like a man who has slept in a forest and wakes to see by his side a famishing lioness. He was frightened, and there was no one to see him; the boldest men yield to fear under such circumstances.
“No one but HE can know—or would dare——” he murmured to himself.
The mask clutched his hand tighter to prevent his finishing his sentence.
“Act as if I were he,” he said.
Rastignac then acted like a millionaire on the highroad with a brigand’s pistol at his head; he surrendered.
“My dear Count,” said he to du Chatelet, to whom he presently returned, “if you care for your position in life, treat Lucien de Rubempre as a man whom you will one day see holding a place far above where you stand.”
The mask made a imperceptible gesture of approbation, and went off in search of Lucien.