“What are you going to do?” asked Lousteau.  “What is to be done to the chateau?”

“This is what I am going to do,” said the little man, leading Lousteau, the local artist, and Dinah out on the terrace.

He pointed out, on the front of the building, a shield supported by two sirens, not unlike that which may be seen on the arcade, now closed, through which there used to be a passage from the Quai des Tuileries to the courtyard of the old Louvre, and over which the words may still be seen, “Bibliotheque du Cabinet du Roi.”  This shield bore the arms of the noble House of Uxelles, namely, Or and gules party per fess, with two lions or, dexter and sinister as supporters.  Above, a knight’s helm, mantled of the tincture of the shield, and surmounted by a ducal coronet.  Motto, Cy paroist! A proud and sonorous device.

“I want to put my own coat of arms in the place of that of the Uxelles; and as they are repeated six times on the two fronts and the two wings, it is not a trifling affair.”

“Your arms, so new, and since 1830!” exclaimed Dinah.

“Have I not created an entail?”

“I could understand it if you had children,” said the journalist.

“Oh!” said the old man, “Madame de la Baudraye is still young; there is no time lost.”

This allusion made Lousteau smile; he did not understand Monsieur de la Baudraye.

“There, Didine!” said he in Dinah’s ear, “what a waste of remorse!”

Dinah begged him to give her one day more, and the lovers parted after the manner of certain theatres, which give ten last performances of a piece that is paying.  And how many promises they made!  How many solemn pledges did not Dinah exact and the unblushing journalist give her!

Dinah, with superiority of the Superior Woman, accompanied Lousteau, in the face of all the world, as far as Cosne, with her mother and little La Baudraye.  When, ten days later, Madame de la Baudraye saw in her drawing-room at La Baudraye, Monsieur de Clagny, Gatien, and Gravier, she found an opportunity of saying to each in turn: 

“I owe it to Monsieur Lousteau that I discovered that I had not been loved for my own sake.”

And what noble speeches she uttered, on man, on the nature of his feelings, on the end of his base passions, and so forth.  Of Dinah’s three worshipers, Monsieur de Clagny only said to her:  “I love you, come what may”—­and Dinah accepted him as her confidant, lavished on him all the marks of friendship which women can devise for the Gurths who are ready thus to wear the collar of gilded slavery.

In Paris once more, Lousteau had, in a few weeks, lost the impression of the happy time he had spent at the Chateau d’Anzy.  This is why:  Lousteau lived by his pen.