Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/181

 this house, built of sandstone, rough-cast in reddish mortar, and had appreciated the Bordières farm, the three dandies looked at each other and feelingly quoted the saying of the abbé in the Marrons du Feu, by Alfred de Musset, whose Contes d’Espagne had just then appeared:

“Sad!”

“Your mother would pay on receipt of a cleverly written letter,” said Rastignac.

“Yes, and then—?” cried De Marsay.

“Had you only been put into a cab,” said Lucien, “the King’s government would have procured you a position in diplomacy; but Sainte-Pélagie is not the anteroom of an embassy.”

“You are not strong enough for Paris life,” said Rastignac.

“Let’s see!” rejoined De Marsay, measuring Savinien as a dealer rates a horse, “you have beautiful, well-formed blue eyes, you have a white, well-cut forehead, magnificent black hair, a small moustache which looks well against your pale cheeks, and a slender figure; you have a foot which indicates breeding, shoulders and chest that are not too much like a porter’s and are yet solid. You are what I call an elegant dark man. Your face is of the Louis XIII. style, with little color, and a nicely shaped nose; and you have besides, that which pleases women, a something indefinable that men themselves do not understand and which is in the appearance, the bearing, the sound of the voice, in the darting of the glance, in the gestures, a host of little things