“I expect I shall have a box at one of the theatres to-morrow,” he remarked carelessly; “I will call for you and M. de Rubempre, for you must allow me to do the honors of Paris.”

“There is more generosity in his character than I thought,” said Mme. de Bargeton to herself when Lucien was included in the invitation.

In the month of June ministers are often puzzled to know what to do with boxes at the theatre; ministerialist deputies and their constituents are busy in their vineyards or harvest fields, and their more exacting acquaintances are in the country or traveling about; so it comes to pass that the best seats are filled at this season with heterogeneous theatre-goers, never seen at any other time of year, and the house is apt to look as if it were tapestried with very shabby material.  Chatelet had thought already that this was his opportunity of giving Nais the amusements which provincials crave most eagerly, and that with very little expense.

The next morning, the very first morning in Paris, Lucien went to the Rue Nueve-de-Luxembourg and found that Louise had gone out.  She had gone to make some indispensable purchases, to take counsel of the mighty and illustrious authorities in the matter of the feminine toilette, pointed out to her by Chatelet, for she had written to tell the Marquise d’Espard of her arrival.  Mme. de Bargeton possessed the self-confidence born of a long habit of rule, but she was exceedingly afraid of appearing to be provincial.  She had tact enough to know how greatly the relations of women among themselves depend upon first impressions; and though she felt that she was equal to taking her place at once in such a distinguished set as Mme. de d’Espard’s, she felt also that she stood in need of goodwill at her first entrance into society, and was resolved, in the first place, that she would leave nothing undone to secure success.  So she felt boundlessly thankful to Chatelet for pointing out these ways of putting herself in harmony with the fashionable world.

A singular chance so ordered it that the Marquise was delighted to find an opportunity of being useful to a connection of her husband’s family.  The Marquis d’Espard had withdrawn himself without apparent reason from society, and ceased to take any active interest in affairs, political or domestic.  His wife, thus left mistress of her actions, felt the need of the support of public opinion, and was glad to take the Marquis’ place and give her countenance to one of her husband’s relations.  She meant to be ostentatiously gracious, so as to put her husband more evidently in the wrong; and that very day she wrote, “Mme. de Bargeton nee Negrepelisse” a charming billet, one of the prettily worded compositions of which time alone can discover the emptiness.