"You are in a bad humor; perhaps your visit to the beautiful Comtesse
de Restaud was not a success."

"She has shut her door against me because I told her that her father
dined at our table," cried Rastignac.

Glances were exchanged all round the room; Father Goriot looked down.

"You have sent some snuff into my eye," he said to his neighbor,
turning a little aside to rub his hand over his face.

"Any one who molests Father Goriot will have henceforward to reckon
with me," said Eugene, looking at the old man's neighbor; "he is worth
all the rest of us put together.--I am not speaking of the ladies," he
added, turning in the direction of Mlle. Taillefer.

Eugene's remarks produced a sensation, and his tone silenced the
dinner-table. Vautrin alone spoke. "If you are going to champion
Father Goriot, and set up for his responsible editor into the bargain,
you had need be a crack shot and know how to handle the foils," he
said, banteringly.

"So I intend," said Eugene.

"Then you are taking the field to-day?"

"Perhaps," Rastignac answered. "But I owe no account of myself to any
one, especially as I do not try to find out what other people do of a
night."