In hoping to make her visit short, Madame de l’Estorade had not counted on the allurements of conversation which, under the circumstances of this so-called political victory, laid hold of her husband.  A man of more influence by his judgment than by his oratory in the Chamber of Peers, Monsieur de l’Estorade, as he circulated through the salons, was stopped at every turn by the various notabilities of politics, finance, and diplomacy, and requested to give his opinion on the future of the session now about to begin.  To all such questions he replied with more or less extended observations, and sometimes he had the pleasure of finding himself the centre of a group respectfully receptive of his opinions.  This success rendered him very inattentive to the telegraphy of his wife, who, watching his various evolutions, made him signs whenever she could catch his eye that she wished to go away.

The years that had elapsed since Monsieur de l’Estorade had obtained the hand of the beautiful Renee de Maucombe, while they had scarcely dimmed the splendor of her beauty, had considerably aged her husband.  The twenty years’ difference in their ages—­he being now fifty-two, she thirty-two—­was growing all the more apparent because even at the time of the marriage he was turning gray and his health was failing.  An affection of the liver, latent for several years, was now developing, and at the same time the wilful disposition which is noticeable in statesmen and men of ambition made his mouth less sensitive to the conjugal bit.  Monsieur de l’Estorade talked so long and so well that after a time the salons thinned, leaving a group of the intimates of the house around his wife and their hostess.  At this moment the minister himself slipped an arm through his, and, leading him up to the group surrounding their two wives, Rastignac said to Madame de l’Estorade,—­

“I bring you back your husband; I have just found him in criminal conversation with a member of the Zollverin, who would probably have clung to him all night if it had not been for me.”

“I was myself on the point of asking Madame de Rastignac for a bed, that I might release her from the burden of my company, which Monsieur de l’Estorade’s interminable conversations have put upon her.”

Madame de Rastignac protested that, on the contrary, she desired to enjoy as long as possible Madame de l’Estorade’s company, only regretting that she had been so often obliged to interrupt their conversation to receive those strange objects, the newly fledged deputies, who had come in relays to make their bow to her.

“Oh! my dear,” cried Rastignac, “here’s the session about to open, and we really must not take these disdainful airs toward the elect of the nation.  Besides which, you will get into difficulties with madame, who, I am told, is the protectress of one of these sovereigns of late date.”

“I?” said Madame de l’Estorade, rather surprised, and blushing a little.  She had one of those complexions, still fresh and dazzling, which are predisposed to these flushes of color.