"Oh, Lucien, if
you would only stay and work with us! We are about to bring out a
periodical in which justice and truth shall never be violated; we will
spread doctrines that, perhaps, will be of real service to
mankind----"
"You will not have a single subscriber," Lucien broke in with
Machiavellian wisdom.
"There will be five hundred of them," asserted Michel Chrestien, "but
they will be worth five hundred thousand."
"You will need a lot of capital," continued Lucien.
"No, only devotion," said d'Arthez.
"Anybody might take him for a perfumer's assistant," burst out Michel
Chrestien, looking at Lucien's head, and sniffing comically. "You were
seen driving about in a very smart turnout with a pair of
thoroughbreds, and a mistress for a prince, Coralie herself."
"Well, and is there any harm in it?"
"You would not say that if you thought that there was no harm in it,"
said Bianchon.
"I could have wished Lucien a Beatrice," said d'Arthez, "a noble
woman, who would have been a help to him in life----"
"But, Daniel," asked Lucien, "love is love wherever you find it, is it
not?"
"Ah!" said the republican member, "on that one point I am an
aristocrat. I could not bring myself to love a woman who must rub
shoulders with all sorts of people in the green-room; whom an actor
kisses on stage; she must lower herself before the public, smile on
every one, lift her skirts as she dances, and dress like a man, that
all the world may see what none should see save I alone.
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