“Yes; in the first shock of surprise at such an unexpected blow, I did say that foolish thing; but, on reflection, who can explain as well as you can the intention of the words you wrote with your own pen?  Yesterday I was almost out of my mind; but you, with your wounded self-love, which can’t forgive a momentary impatience, you are very caustic and cruel.”

“So,” said la Peyrade, “you formally request me to defend you before the jury?”

“Yes, my dear fellow; and I don’t know any other hands in which I could better place my case.  I should have to pay a monstrous sum to some great legal luminary, and he wouldn’t defend me as ably as you.”

“Well, I refuse.  Roles have changed, as you see, diametrically.  Yesterday, I thought, as you do, that I was the man to defend you.  To-day, I see that you had better take the legal luminary, because, with Vinet’s antagonism against you the affair is taking such proportions that whoever defends it assumes a fearful responsibility.”

“I understand,” said Thuillier, sarcastically.  “Monsieur has his eye on the magistracy, and he doesn’t want to quarrel with a man who is already talked of for Keeper of the Seals.  It is prudent, but I don’t know that it is going to help on your marriage.”

“You mean,” said la Peyrade, seizing the ball in its bound, “that to get you out of the claws of that jury is a thirteenth labor of Hercules, imposed upon me to earn the hand of Mademoiselle Colleville?  I expected that demands would multiply in proportion to the proofs of my devotion.  But that is the very thing that has worn me out, and I have come here to-day to put an end to this slave labor by giving back to you your pledges.  You may dispose of Celeste’s hand; for my part, I am no longer a suitor for it.”

The unexpectedness and squareness of this declaration left Thuillier without words or voice, all the more because at this moment entered Brigitte.  The temper of the old maid had also greatly moderated since the previous evening, and her greeting was full of the most amicable familiarity.

“Ah! so here you are, you good old barrister,” she said.

“Mademoiselle, your servant,” he replied, gravely.

“Well,” she continued, paying no attention to the stiffness of his manner, “the government has got itself into a pretty mess by seizing your pamphlet.  You ought to see how the morning papers lash it!  Here,” she added, giving Thuillier a small sheet printed on sugar-paper, in coarse type, and almost illegible,—­“here’s another, you didn’t read; the porter has just brought it up.  It is a paper from our old quarter, ‘L’Echo de la Bievre.’  I don’t know, gentlemen, if you’ll be of my opinion, but I think nothing could be better written.  It is droll, though, how inattentive these journalists are! most of them write your name without the H; I think you ought to complain of it.”