"I was certain it was the cousin," thought Madame des Grassins,
casting repeated glances at him.

"Forty-seven!" cried the old abbe. "Mark it down, Madame des Grassins.
Isn't that your number?"

Monsieur des Grassins put a counter on his wife's card, who sat
watching first the cousin from Paris and then Eugenie, without
thinking of her loto, a prey to mournful presentiments. From time to
time the young the heiress glanced furtively at her cousin, and the
banker's wife easily detected a _crescendo_ of surprise and curiosity
in her mind.

Monsieur Charles Grandet, a handsome young man of twenty-two,
presented at this moment a singular contrast to the worthy
provincials, who, considerably disgusted by his aristocratic manners,
were all studying him with sarcastic intent. This needs an
explanation. At twenty-two, young people are still so near childhood
that they often conduct themselves childishly. In all probability, out
of every hundred of them fully ninety-nine would have behaved
precisely as Monsieur Charles Grandet was now behaving.

Some days earlier than this his father had told him to go and spend
several months with his uncle at Saumur. Perhaps Monsieur Grandet was
thinking of Eugenie. Charles, sent for the first time in his life into
the provinces, took a fancy to make his appearance with the
superiority of a man of fashion, to reduce the whole arrondissement to
despair by his luxury, and to make his visit an epoch, importing into
those country regions all the refinements of Parisian life. In short,
to explain it in one word, he mean to pass more time at Saumur in