“Oh! pshaw!”

“No, cousin.  Some inlaid work and some kinds of porcelain will never be made again, just as there will never be another Raphael, nor Titian, nor Rembrandt, nor Van Eyck, nor Cranach. . . .  Well, now! there are the Chinese; they are very ingenious, very clever; they make modern copies of their ‘grand mandarin’ porcelain, as it is called.  But a pair of vases of genuine ‘grand mandarin’ vases of the largest size, are worth, six, eight, and ten thousand francs, while you can buy the modern replicas for a couple of hundred!”

“You are joking.”

“You are astonished at the prices, but that is nothing, cousin.  A dinner service of Sevres pate tendre (and pate tendre is not porcelain)—­a complete dinner service of Sevres pate tendre for twelve persons is not merely worth a hundred thousand francs, but that is the price charged on the invoice.  Such a dinner-service cost fifteen thousand francs at Sevres in 1750; I have seen the original invoices.”

“But let us go back to this fan,” said Cecile.  Evidently in her opinion the trinket was an old-fashioned thing.

“You can understand that as soon as your dear mamma did me the honor of asking for a fan, I went round of all the curiosity shops in Paris, but I found nothing fine enough.  I wanted nothing less than a masterpiece for the dear Presidente, and thought of giving her one that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the most beautiful of all celebrated fans.  But yesterday I was dazzled by this divine chef-d’oeuvre, which certainly must have been ordered by Louis XV. himself.  Do you ask how I came to look for fans in the Rue de Lappe, among an Auvergnat’s stock of brass and iron and ormolu furniture?  Well, I myself believe that there is an intelligence in works of art; they know art-lovers, they call to them—­’Cht-tt!’”

Mme. de Marville shrugged her shoulders and looked at her daughter; Pons did not notice the rapid pantomime.

“I know all those sharpers,” continued Pons, “so I asked him, ’Anything fresh to-day, Daddy Monistrol?’—­(for he always lets me look over his lots before the big buyers come)—­and at that he began to tell me how Lienard, that did such beautiful work for the Government in the Chapelle de Dreux, had been at the Aulnay sale and rescued the carved panels out of the clutches of the Paris dealers, while their heads were running on china and inlaid furniture.—­’I did not do much myself,’ he went on, ’but I may make my traveling expenses out of this,’ and he showed me a what-not; a marvel!  Boucher’s designs executed in marquetry, and with such art!—­One could have gone down on one’s knees before it.—­’Look, sir,’ he said, ’I have just found this fan in a little drawer; it was locked, I had to force it open.  You might tell me where I can sell it’—­and with that he brings out this little carved cherry-wood box.—­’See,’ says he, ’it is the kind of Pompadour that looks like decorated