He sat with the Duchess in their box at the Italiens, the whole house envying them their happiness, and while he smiled at her, all the Furies were tearing at his heart.  Indeed, to give some idea of the depths of doubt, despair, and incredulity in which the boy was groveling; he who so clung to life—­the life which the angel had made so fair—­who so loved it, that he would have stooped to baseness merely to live; he, the pleasure-loving scapegrace, the degenerate d’Esgrignon, had even taken out his pistols, had gone so far as to think of suicide.  He who would never have brooked the appearance of an insult was abusing himself in language which no man is likely to hear except from himself.

He left du Croisier’s letter lying open on the bed.  Josephin had brought it in at nine o’clock.  Victurnien’s furniture had been seized, but he slept none the less.  After he came back from the Opera, he and the Duchess had gone to a voluptuous retreat, where they often spent a few hours together after the most brilliant court balls and evening parties and gaieties.  Appearances were very cleverly saved.  Their love-nest was a garret like any other to all appearance; Mme. de Maufrigneuse was obliged to bow her head with its court feathers or wreath of flowers to enter in at the door; but within all the peris of the East had made the chamber fair.  And now that the Count was on the brink of ruin, he had longed to bid farewell to the dainty nest, which he had built to realize a day-dream worthy of his angel.  Presently adversity would break the enchanted eggs; there would be no brood of white doves, no brilliant tropical birds, no more of the thousand bright-winged fancies which hover above our heads even to the last days of our lives.  Alas! alas! in three days he must be gone; his bills had fallen into the hands of the money-lenders, the law proceedings had reached the last stage.

An evil thought crossed his brain.  He would fly with the Duchess; they would live in some undiscovered nook in the wilds of North or South America; but—­he would fly with a fortune, and leave his creditors to confront their bills.  To carry out the plan, he had only to cut off the lower portion of that letter with du Croisier’s signature, and to fill in the figures to turn it into a bill, and present it to the Kellers.  There was a dreadful struggle with temptation; tears shed, but the honor of the family triumphed, subject to one condition.  Victurnien wanted to be sure of his beautiful Diane; he would do nothing unless she should consent to their flight.  So he went to the Duchess in the Rue Faubourg Saint-Honore, and found her in coquettish morning dress, which cost as much in thought as in money, a fit dress in which to begin to play the part of Angel at eleven o’clock in the morning.