outlines moulded by the clinging folds of her bodice, and lingered over the Andalusian contour of the hips from which her skirt hung, fluttering wantonly with every movement.  To Lucien, watching this creature, who played for him alone, caring no more for Camusot than a street-boy in the gallery cares for an apple-paring, there came a moment when he set desire above love, and enjoyment above desire, and the demon of Lust stirred strange thoughts in him.

“I know nothing of the love that wallows in luxury and wine and sensual pleasure,” he said within himself.  “I have lived more with ideas than with realities.  You must pass through all experience if you mean to render all experience.  This will be my first great supper, my first orgy in a new and strange world; why should I not know, for once, the delights which the great lords of the eighteenth century sought so eagerly of wantons of the Opera?  Must one not first learn of courtesans and actresses the delights, the perfections, the transports, the resources, the subtleties of love, if only to translate them afterwards into the regions of a higher love than this?  And what is all this, after all, but the poetry of the senses?  Two months ago these women seemed to me to be goddesses guarded by dragons that no one dared approach; I was envying Lousteau just now, but here is another handsomer than Florine; why should I not profit by her fancy, when the greatest nobles buy a night with such women with their richest treasures?  When ambassadors set foot in these depths, they fling aside all thought of yesterday or to-morrow.  I should be a fool to be more squeamish than princes, especially as I love no one as yet.”

Lucien had quite forgotten Camusot.  To Lousteau he had expressed the utmost disgust for this most hateful of all partitions, and now he himself had sunk to the same level, and, carried away by the casuistry of his vehement desire, had given the reins to his fancy.

“Coralie is raving about you,” said Lousteau as he came in.  “Your countenance, worthy of the greatest Greek sculptors, has worked unutterable havoc behind the scenes.  You are in luck my dear boy.  Coralie is eighteen years old, and in a few days’ time she may be making sixty thousand francs a year by her beauty.  She is an honest girl still.  Since her mother sold her three years ago for sixty thousand francs, she has tried to find happiness, and found nothing but annoyance.  She took to the stage in a desperate mood; she has a horror of her first purchaser, de Marsay; and when she came out of the galleys, for the king of dandies soon dropped her, she picked up old Camusot.  She does not care much about him, but he is like a father to her, and she endures him and his love.  Several times already she has refused the handsomest proposals; she is faithful to Camusot, who lets her live in peace.  So you are her first love.  The first sight of you went to her heart like a pistol-shot, Florine has gone to her dressing-room to bring the girl to reason.  She is crying over your cruelty; she has forgotten her part, the play will go to pieces, and good-day to the engagement at the Gymnase which Camusot had planned for her.”