"Any one might think that you were afraid to owe me a trifle,"
exclaimed this latter, with a searching glance that seemed to read the
young man's inmost thoughts; there was a satirical and cynical smile
on Vautrin's face such as Eugene had seen scores of times already;
every time he saw it, it exasperated him almost beyond endurance.
"Well . . . so I am," he answered. He held both the bags in his hand,
and had risen to go up to his room.
Vautrin made as if he were going out through the sitting-room, and the
student turned to go through the second door that opened into the
square lobby at the foot of the staircase.
"Do you know, Monsieur le Marquis de Rastignacorama, that what you
were saying just now was not exactly polite?" Vautrin remarked, as he
rattled his sword-cane across the panels of the sitting-room door, and
came up to the student.
Rastignac looked coolly at Vautrin, drew him to the foot of the
staircase, and shut the dining-room door. They were standing in the
little square lobby between the kitchen and the dining-room; the place
was lighted by an iron-barred fanlight above a door that gave access
into the garden. Sylvie came out of her kitchen, and Eugene chose that
moment to say:
"_Monsieur_ Vautrin, I am not a marquis, and my name is not
Rastignacorama.
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