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Only let him know that the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had pledged her word to you. And not a word as to my journey hither," she added. The old judge kissed her hand and began recklessly to gather his best flowers for her. "Can you think of it? Give them to madame," said the Duchess. "A young man should not have flowers about him when he has a pretty woman on his arm."

The Vidame de Pamiers, the Duc de Grandlieu, the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse were playing Wisk, as they called it, in a corner of the room. When Lucien was announced he walked across the room to make his bow to the Duchess, asking the cause of the grief he could read in her face.

The cleverest men are fain to deceive themselves on one or two points if the truth once known is likely to humiliate them in their own eyes, and damage themselves with themselves. Victurnien forced his own irresolution into the field by committing himself. "What is the matter with you?" Diane de Maufrigneuse had said at once, at the sight of her beloved Victurnien's face.

"Well, well, you must marry a wife who can bring you the money; but you will have some difficulty in finding a match with such a fortune in our Faubourg, where daughters do not get large dowries." "Their name is enough," said Lucien. "We are only three wisk players Maufrigneuse, d'Espard, and I will you make a fourth?" said the Duke, pointing to the card-table.

Great relations lent her countenance for a long while, but the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was one of those women who, in some way, nobody knows how, or why, or where, will spend the rents of all the lands of earth, and of the moon likewise, if they were not out of reach. The general outline of her character was scarcely known as yet; de Marsay, and de Marsay only, really had read her.

However great the faults of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse may have seemed in the eyes of the bourgeoisie, the behavior of her son on this occasion certainly effaced them in the eyes of the aristocracy. There was great nobility and grandeur in thus risking her only son, and the heir of an historic name.

Her Grace of Maufrigneuse had just come out as an angel at a moment's notice, precisely as she meant to turn to literature and science somewhere about her fortieth year instead of taking to devotion. She made a point of being like nobody else. Her parts, her dresses, her caps, opinions, toilettes, and manner of acting were all entirely new and original.

At last he went out with the air of a man who didn't know what he might do next. "The Baron de Macumer is in love!" exclaimed Mme. de Maufrigneuse. "Strange, isn't it, for a fallen minister?" replied my mother.

What is to be said if these documents should be placed in the hands of counsel chosen by that rascal from among the foes of the government and the aristocracy! My wife, to whom the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse has shown so much kindness, is gone to warn her, and by this time they must be with the Grandlieus holding council."

He felt chagrined; such magnanimity made him feel very small. "There! one must reform," he thought; and instead of going to a restaurant and spending fifty or sixty francs over his dinner, he retrenched by dining with the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and told her about the letter. "I should like to see that man," she said, letting her eyes shine like two fixed stars. "What would you do?"