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Grown stupid with dismay, he turned and fixed his eyes on a Japanese jar standing on a begarlanded console table of the time of Louis Quinze; then, recollecting that he must conciliate Mme. de Bargeton's husband, he tried to find out if the good gentleman had a hobby of any sort in which he might be humored. "You seldom leave the city, monsieur?" he began, returning to M. de Bargeton.
Pending the decease of genius, Chatelet appeared to offer up his hopes as a sacrifice at Mme. de Bargeton's feet; but with the ingenuity of a rake, he kept his own plan in abeyance, watching the lovers' movements with keenly critical eyes, and waiting for the opportunity of ruining Lucien. From this time forward, vague rumors reported the existence of a great man in Angoumois.
A fierce thrill of excitement ran through him as he did so. Everybody interpreted this announcement in one way it was a shift of Mme. de Bargeton's, meant to save the poet's self-love and to put the audience at ease. Lucien began with Le Malade, and the poem was received with a murmur of applause; but he followed it with L'Aveugle, which proved too great a strain upon the average intellect.
Mme. de Bargeton's rooms were crowded that evening with friends who came to remonstrate with her. She brought her most caustic wit into play.
David should go to Mme. de Bargeton's house! David would shine there in all the majesty of his genius! He raised his head so proudly in the intoxication of a victory which increased his belief in himself and his ascendency over others, his face was so radiant with the brightness of many hopes, that his sister could not help telling him that he looked handsome.
Lucien slept on till four o'clock in the afternoon, when he was awakened by Mme. de Bargeton's servant, and learning the hour, made a hasty toilet and hurried downstairs. Louise was sitting in the shabby inn sitting-room.
"Yes, a letter that smells like balm! it is lying on the corner near my desk." Mme. de Bargeton's letter lying among the physic bottles in a druggist's shop! Lucien sprang in to rescue it. "Be quick, Lucien! your dinner has been waiting an hour for you, it will be cold!" a sweet voice called gently through a half-opened window; but Lucien did not hear.
"What shall I say?" he thought within himself; "Nais really ought to have told me what to say," and the good gentleman racked his brains to compose a speech that should not be ridiculous. But people of M. de Bargeton's stamp, who live perforce in silence because their capacity is limited and their outlook circumscribed, often behave at great crises with a ready-made solemnity.
As the overweening haughtiness of the Court nobles detached the provincial noblesse from the throne, so did these last alienate the bourgeoisie from the royal cause by behavior that galled their vanity in every possible way. So "a man of L'Houmeau," a druggist's son, in Mme. de Bargeton's house was nothing less than a little revolution. Who was responsible for it?
Nais bowed in acknowledgment, and looked thoughtful. She was weary to disgust of provincial life. Chatelet had scarcely begun before her mind turned to Paris. Meanwhile Mme. de Bargeton's adorer found the silence somewhat awkward. "Dispose of me, I repeat," he added. "Thank you," answered the lady. "What do you think of doing?" "I shall see." A prolonged pause.
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