heart failed you to clutch old Taillefer's millions when the hardest
part of the business was done--let me tell you, for your personal
safety, that if you do not treat Lucien like the brother you love, you
are in our power, while we are not in yours. Silence and submission!
or I shall join your game and upset the skittles. Lucien de Rubempre
is under the protection of the strongest power of the day--the Church.
Choose between life and death--Answer."

Rastignac felt giddy, like a man who has slept in a forest and wakes
to see by his side a famishing lioness. He was frightened, and there
was no one to see him; the boldest men yield to fear under such
circumstances.

"No one but HE can know--or would dare----" he murmured to himself.

The mask clutched his hand tighter to prevent his finishing his
sentence.

"Act as if I were _he_," he said.

Rastignac then acted like a millionaire on the highroad with a
brigand's pistol at his head; he surrendered.

"My dear Count," said he to du Chatelet, to whom he presently
returned, "if you care for your position in life, treat Lucien de
Rubempre as a man whom you will one day see holding a place far above
where you stand."

The mask made a imperceptible gesture of approbation, and went off in
search of Lucien.