dismounted and let down the step. As Eugene stepped out of the cab, he
heard smothered laughter from the peristyle. Three or four lackeys
were making merry over the festal appearance of the vehicle. In
another moment the law student was enlightened as to the cause of
their hilarity; he felt the full force of the contrast between his
equipage and one of the smartest broughams in Paris; a coachman, with
powdered hair, seemed to find it difficult to hold a pair of spirited
horses, who stood chafing the bit. In Mme. de Restaud's courtyard, in
the Chaussee d'Antin, he had seen the neat turnout of a young man of
six-and-twenty; in the Faubourg Saint-Germain he found the luxurious
equipage of a man of rank; thirty thousand francs would not have
purchased it.

"Who can be here?" said Eugene to himself. He began to understand,
though somewhat tardily, that he must not expect to find many women in
Paris who were not already appropriated, and that the capture of one
of these queens would be likely to cost something more than bloodshed.
"Confound it all! I expect my cousin also has her Maxime."

He went up the steps, feeling that he was a blighted being. The glass
door was opened for him; the servants were as solemn as jackasses
under the curry comb. So far, Eugene had only been in the ballroom on
the ground floor of the Hotel Beauseant; the fete had followed so
closely on the invitation, that he had not had time to call on his
cousin, and had therefore never seen Mme. de Beauseant's apartments;
he was about to behold for the first time a great lady among the
wonderful and elegant surroundings that reveal her character and
reflect her daily life. He was the more curious, because Mme. de
Restaud's drawing-room had provided him with a standard of comparison.