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They were able to examine Charles at their leisure without fearing to
displease the master of the house. Grandet was absorbed in the long
letter which he held in his hand; and to read it he had taken the only
candle upon the card-table, paying no heed to his guests or their
pleasure. Eugenie, to whom such a type of perfection, whether of dress
or of person, was absolutely unknown, thought she beheld in her cousin
a being descended from seraphic spheres. She inhaled with delight the
fragrance wafted from the graceful curls of that brilliant head. She
would have liked to touch the soft kid of the delicate gloves. She
envied Charles his small hands, his complexion, the freshness and
refinement of his features. In short,--if it is possible to sum up the
effect this elegant being produced upon an ignorant young girl
perpetually employed in darning stockings or in mending her father's
clothes, and whose life flowed on beneath these unclean rafters,
seeing none but occasional passers along the silent street,--this
vision of her cousin roused in her soul an emotion of delicate desire
like that inspired in a young man by the fanciful pictures of women
drawn by Westall for the English "Keepsakes," and that engraved by the
Findens with so clever a tool that we fear, as we breathe upon the
paper, that the celestial apparitions may be wafted away. Charles drew
from his pocket a handkerchief embroidered by the great lady now
travelling in Scotland. As Eugenie saw this pretty piece of work, done
in the vacant hours which were lost to love, she looked at her cousin
to see if it were possible that he meant to make use of it. The
manners of the young man, his gestures, the way in which he took up
his eye-glass, his affected superciliousness, his contemptuous glance
at the coffer which had just given so much pleasure to the rich
heiress, and which he evidently regarded as without value, or even as
ridiculous,--all these things, which shocked the Cruchots and the des
Grassins, pleased Eugenie so deeply that before she slept she dreamed
long dreams of her phoenix cousin.
The loto-numbers were drawn very slowly, and presently the game came
suddenly to an end. La Grand Nanon entered and said aloud: "Madame, I
want the sheets for monsieur's bed."
Madame Grandet followed her out. Madame des Grassins said in a low
voice: "Let us keep our sous and stop playing." Each took his or her
two sous from the chipped saucer in which they had been put; then the
party moved in a body toward the fire.
"Have you finished your game?" said Grandet, without looking up from
his letter.
"Yes, yes!" replied Madame des Grassins, taking a seat near Charles.
Eugenie, prompted by a thought often born in the heart of a young girl
when sentiment enters it for the first time, left the room to go and
help her mother and Nanon. Had an able confessor then questioned her
she would, no doubt, have avowed to him that she thought neither of
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