. . Why, just look at him, you old
fossil, and look at yourself!" and her eyes turned to her poet.
Camusot had pressed Lucien to drink till the poet's head was rather
cloudy.
There was no help for it; Camusot made up his mind to wait till sheer
want should give him this woman a second time.
"Then I can only be your friend," he said, as he kissed her on the
forehead.
Lucien went from Coralie and Camusot to the Wooden Galleries. What a
change had been wrought in his mind by his initiation into Journalism!
He mixed fearlessly now with the crowd which surged to and fro in the
buildings; he even swaggered a little because he had a mistress; and
he walked into Dauriat's shop in an offhand manner because he was a
journalist.
He found himself among distinguished men; gave a hand to Blondet and
Nathan and Finot, and to all the coterie with whom he had been
fraternizing for a week. He was a personage, he thought, and he
flattered himself that he surpassed his comrades. That little flick of
the wine did him admirable service; he was witty, he showed that he
could "howl with the wolves."
And yet, the tacit approval, the praises spoken and unspoken on which
he had counted, were not forthcoming. He noticed the first stirrings
of jealousy among a group, less curious, perhaps, than anxious to know
the place which this newcomer might take, and the exact portion of the
sum-total of profits which he would probably secure and swallow.
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