It was like balm
to the law student, who was still smarting under the Duchess' insolent
scrutiny; she had looked at him as an auctioneer might look at some
article to appraise its value.
"Imagine, too, that I had just made some progress with the Comte de
Restaud; for I should tell you, madame," he went on, turning to the
Duchess with a mixture of humility and malice in his manner, "that as
yet I am only a poor devil of a student, very much alone in the world,
and very poor----"
"You should not tell us that, M. de Rastignac. We women never care
about anything that no one else will take."
"Bah!" said Eugene. "I am only two-and-twenty, and I must make up my
mind to the drawbacks of my time of life. Besides, I am confessing my
sins, and it would be impossible to kneel in a more charming
confessional; you commit your sins in one drawing-room, and receive
absolution for them in another."
The Duchess' expression grew colder, she did not like the flippant
tone of these remarks, and showed that she considered them to be in
bad taste by turning to the Vicomtesse with--"This gentleman has only
just come----"
Mme. de Beauseant began to laugh outright at her cousin and at the
Duchess both.
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