“Isn’t it nice?” she said coaxingly.  “You would be more comfortable here, wouldn’t you, than in a garret?—­You won’t let her do anything rash?” she continued, setting a costly stand before him, covered with dishes abstracted from her mistress’ dinner-table, lest the cook should suspect that her mistress had a lover in the house.

Lucien made a good dinner.  Berenice waiting on him, the dishes were of wrought silver, the painted porcelain plates had cost a louis d’or apiece.  The luxury was producing exactly the same effect upon him that the sight of a girl walking the pavement, with her bare flaunting throat and neat ankles, produces upon a schoolboy.

“How lucky Camusot is!” cried he.

“Lucky?” repeated Berenice.  “He would willingly give all that he is worth to be in your place; he would be glad to barter his gray hair for your golden head.”

She gave Lucien the richest wine that Bordeaux keeps for the wealthiest English purchaser, and persuaded Lucien to go to bed to take a preliminary nap; and Lucien, in truth, was quite willing to sleep on the couch that he had been admiring.  Berenice had read his wish, and felt glad for her mistress.

At half-past ten that night Lucien awoke to look into eyes brimming over with love.  There stood Coralie in most luxurious night attire.  Lucien had been sleeping; Lucien was intoxicated with love, and not with wine.  Berenice left the room with the inquiry, “What time to-morrow morning?”

“At eleven o’clock.  We will have breakfast in bed.  I am not at home to anybody before two o’clock.”

At two o’clock in the afternoon Coralie and her lover were sitting together.  The poet to all appearance had come to pay a call.  Lucien had been bathed and combed and dressed.  Coralie had sent to Colliau’s for a dozen fine shirts, a dozen cravats and a dozen pocket-handkerchiefs for him, as well as twelve pairs of gloves in a cedar-wood box.  When a carriage stopped at the door, they both rushed to the window, and watched Camusot alight from a handsome coupe.

“I would not have believed that one could so hate a man and luxury——­”

“I am too poor to allow you to ruin yourself for me,” he replied.  And thus Lucien passed under the Caudine Forks.

“Poor pet,” said Coralie, holding him tightly to her, “do you love me so much?—­I persuaded this gentleman to call on me this morning,” she continued, indicating Lucien to Camusot, who entered the room.  “I thought that we might take a drive in the Champs Elysees to try the carriage.”

“Go without me,” said Camusot in a melancholy voice; “I shall not dine with you.  It is my wife’s birthday, I had forgotten that.”

“Poor Musot, how badly bored you will be!” she said, putting her arms about his neck.

She was wild with joy at the thought that she and Lucien would handsel this gift together; she would drive with him in the new carriage; and in her happiness, she seemed to love Camusot, she lavished caresses upon him.