Delphine cried.
"I shall look frightful," she thought. She dried her tears.
"I will nurse my father; I will not leave his bedside," she said
aloud.
"Ah! now you are as I would have you," exclaimed Rastignac.
The lamps of five hundred carriages lit up the darkness about the
Hotel de Beauseant. A gendarme in all the glory of his uniform stood
on either side of the brightly lighted gateway. The great world was
flocking thither that night in its eager curiosity to see the great
lady at the moment of her fall, and the rooms on the ground floor were
already full to overflowing, when Mme. de Nucingen and Rastignac
appeared. Never since Louis XIV. tore her lover away from La grand
Mademoiselle, and the whole court hastened to visit that unfortunate
princess, had a disastrous love affair made such a sensation in Paris.
But the youngest daughter of the almost royal house of Burgundy had
risen proudly above her pain, and moved till the last moment like a
queen in this world--its vanities had always been valueless for her,
save in so far as they contributed to the triumph of her passion. The
salons were filled with the most beautiful women in Paris, resplendent
in their toilettes, and radiant with smiles.
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