The carriage of the countess was in the court-yard, and the sight of it swelled Raoul's heart with joy.

Marie was advancing under the pressure of her desires with the regularity of the hands of a clock obeying the mainspring.

He found her sitting at the corner of the fireplace in the little salon.

Instead of looking at Nathan when he was announced, she looked at his reflection in a mirror.
"Monsieur le ministre," said Madame d'Espard, addressing Nathan, and presenting him to de Marsay by a glance, "was maintaining, when you came in, that the royalists and the republicans have a secret understanding.
You ought to know something about it; is it so ?" "If it were so," said Raoul, "where's the harm?
We hate the same thing; we agree as to our hatreds, we differ only in our love.

That's the whole of it." "The alliance is odd enough," said de Marsay, giving a comprehensively meaning glance at the Comtesse Felix and Nathan.
"It won't last," said Rastignac, thinking, perhaps, wholly of politics.
"What do you think, my dear ?" asked Madame d'Espard, addressing Marie.
"I know nothing of public affairs," replied the countess.
"But you soon will, madame," said de Marsay, "and then you will be doubly our enemy." So saying he left the room with Rastignac, and Madame d'Espard accompanied them to the door of the first salon.