His debt to du Tillet, "his friend," did not make him in the least uneasy.
"Why distrust a friend ?" he said to Blondet, who from time to time would cast a doubt on his position, led to do so by his general habit of analyzing.
"But we don't need to distrust our enemies," remarked Florine.
Nathan defended du Tillet; he was the best, the most upright of men.
This existence, which was really that of a dancer on the tight rope without his balance-pole, would have alarmed any one, even the most indifferent, had it been seen as it really was.

Du Tillet watched it with the cool eye and the cynicism of a parvenu.

Through the friendly good humor of his intercourse with Raoul there flashed now and then a malignant jeer.

One day, after pressing his hand in Florine's boudoir and watching him as he got into his carriage, du Tillet remarked to Lousteau (envier par excellence):-- "That fellow is off to the Bois in fine style to-day, but he is just as likely, six months hence, to be in a debtor's prison." "He?
never!" cried Lousteau.

"He has Florine." "How do you know that he'll keep her?
As for you, who are worth a dozen of him, I predict that you will be our editor-in-chief within six months." In October Nathan's notes to du Tillet fell due, and the banker graciously renewed them, but for two months only, with the discount added and a fresh loan.