She stood there with her arm in that of Madame Octave de Camp, an excellent woman, who kept the secret of the involuntary trembling by which these violent emotions betrayed themselves.

Though the eyes of a captivated woman are apt to shed wonderful sweetness, Raoul was too occupied at that moment in letting off fireworks, too absorbed in his epigrams going up like rockets (in the midst of which were flaming portraits drawn in lines of fire) to notice the naive admiration of one little Eve concealed in a group of women.

Marie's curiosity--like that which would undoubtedly precipitate all Paris into the Jardin des Plantes to see a unicorn, if such an animal could be found in those mountains of the moon, still virgin of the tread of Europeans--intoxicates a secondary mind as much as it saddens great ones; but Raoul was enchanted by it; although he was then too anxious to secure all women to care very much for one alone.
"Take care, my dear," said Marie's kind and gracious companion in her ear, "and go home." The countess looked at her husband to ask for his arm with one of those glances which husbands do not always understand.

Felix did so, and took her home.
"My dear friend," said Madame d'Espard in Raoul's ear, "you are a lucky fellow.

You have made more than one conquest to-night, and among them that of the charming woman who has just left us so abruptly." "Do you know what the Marquise d'Espard meant by that ?" said Raoul to Rastignac, when they happened to be comparatively alone between one and two o'clock in the morning.
"I am told that the Comtesse de Vandenesse has taken a violent fancy to you.