“Dangerous?” said Madame d’Espard. “Don’t speak so of my nearest friend. I have never seen or known anything in the princess that did not seem to come from the noblest sentiments.”
“Let the marquis say what he thinks,” cried Rastignac. “When a man has been thrown by a fine horse he thinks it has vices and he sells it.”
Piqued by these words, the Marquis d’Esgrignon looked at d’Arthez and said:—
“Monsieur is not, I trust, on such terms with the princess that we cannot speak freely of her?”
D’Arthez kept silence. D’Esgrignon, who was not wanting in cleverness, replied to Rastignac’s speech with an apologetic portrait of the princess, which put the whole table in good humor. As the jest was extremely obscure to d’Arthez he leaned towards his neighbor, Madame de Montcornet, and asked her, in a whisper, what it meant.
“Excepting yourself—judging by the excellent opinion you seem to have of the princess—all the other guests are said to have been in her good graces.”
“I can assure you that such an accusation is absolutely false,” said Daniel.
“And yet, here is Monsieur d’Esgrignon of an old family of Alencon, who completely ruined himself for her some twelve years ago, and, if all is true, came very near going to the scaffold.”
“I know the particulars of that affair,” said d’Arthez. “Madame de Cadignan went to Alencon to save Monsieur d’Esgrignon from a trial before the court of assizes; and this is how he rewards her to-day!”
Madame de Montcornet looked at d’Arthez with a surprise and curiosity that were almost stupid, then she turned her eyes on Madame d’Espard with a look which seemed to say: “He is bewitched!”