“But, monsieur, we are not a closed way; we open our way, on the contrary, to all ambitions.  But the higher you are in character and intellect, the less we can allow you to pass, dragging after you your train of democrats; for the day when that crew gains the upper hand it will not be a change of policy, but a revolution.”

“But what makes you think I want an opening of any kind?”

“What! follow a course without an aim?—­a course that leads nowhere?  A certain development of a man’s faculties not only gives him the right but makes it his duty to seek to govern.”

“To watch the governing power is a useful career, and, I may add, a very busy one.”

“You can fancy, monsieur,” said Rastignac, good-humoredly, “that if Beauvisage were in your place I should not have taken the trouble to argue with him; I may say, however, that he would have made my effort less difficult.”

“This meeting, which chance has brought about between us,” said Sallenauve, “will have one beneficial result; we understand each other henceforth, and our future meetings will always therefore be courteous —­which will not lessen the strength of our convictions.”

“Then I must say to the king—­for I had his royal commands to—­”

Rastignac did not end the sentence in which he was, so to speak, firing his last gun, for the orchestra began to play a quadrille, and Nais, running up, made him a coquettish courtesy, saying,—­

“Monsieur le ministre, I am very sorry, but you have taken my partner, and you must give him up.  He is down for my eleventh quadrille, and if I miss it my list gets into terrible confusion.”

“You permit me, monsieur?” said Sallenauve, laughing.  “As you see, I am not a very savage republican.”  So saying, he followed Nais, who led him along by the hand.

Madame de l’Estorade, comprehending that this fancy of Nais was rather compromising to the dignity of the new deputy, had arranged that several papas and mammas should figure in the same quadrille; and she herself with the Scottish lad danced vis-a-vis to her daughter, who beamed with pride and joy.  In the evolutions of the last figure, where Nais had to take her mother’s hand, she said, pressing it passionately,—­

“Poor mamma! if it hadn’t been for him, you wouldn’t have me now.”

This sudden reminder so agitated Madame de l’Estorade, coming as it did unexpectedly, that she was seized with a return of the nervous trembling her daughter’s danger had originally caused, and was forced to sit down.  Seeing her change color, Sallenauve, Nais, and Madame Octave de Camps ran to her to know if she were ill.

“It is nothing,” she answered, addressing Sallenauve; “only that my little girl reminded me suddenly of the utmost obligation we are under to you, monsieur.  ‘Without him,’ she said, ‘you would not have me.’  Ah! monsieur, without your generous courage where would my child be now?”