“If Monsieur Julien Dorsenne,” replied Montfanon, in the same mocking tone, “does not pay more attention to his new novel than he is doing at this moment, I pity his publisher.  Come here,” he added, brusquely, dragging the young man to the angle of Rue Borgognona.  “Did you see the victoria stop at No. 13, and the divine Fanny, as you call her, alight? . . . .  She has entered the shop of that old rascal, Ribalta.  She will not remain there long.  She will come out, and she will drive away in her carriage.  It is a pity she will not pass by us again.  We should have had the pleasure of seeing her disappointed air.  This is what she is in search of,” added he, with a gay laugh, exhibiting his purchase, “but which she could not have were she to offer all the millions which her honest father has stolen in Vienna.  Ha, ha!” he concluded, laughing still more heartily, “Monsieur de Montfanon rose first; this morning has not been lost, and you, Monsieur, can see what I obtained at the curiosity-shop of that old fellow who will not make a plaything of this object, at least,” he added, extending the book to his interlocutor, at whom he glanced with a comical expression of triumph.

“I do not wish to look at it,” responded Dorsenne.  “But, yes,” he continued, as Montfanon shrugged his shoulders, “in my capacity of novelist and observer, since you cast it at my head, I know already what it is.  What do you bet? . . .  It is a prayer-book which bears the signature of Marshal de Montluc, and which Cardinal Guerillot discovered.  Is that true?  He spoke to Mademoiselle Hafner about it, and he thought he would mitigate your animosity toward her by telling you she was an enthusiast and wished to buy it.  Is that true as well?  And you, wretched man, had only one thought, to deprive that poor little thing of the trifle.  Is that true?  We spent the evening before last together at Countess Steno’s; she talked to me of nothing but her desire to have the book on which the illustrious soldier, the great believer, had prayed.  She told me of all her heroic resolutions.  Later she went to buy it.  But the shop was closed; I noticed it on passing, and you certainly went there, too . . . .  Is that true? . . .  And, now that I have detailed to you the story, explain to me, you who are so just, why you cherish an antipathy so bitter and so childish—­excuse the word!—­for an innocent, young girl, who has never speculated on ’Change, who is as charitable as a whole convent, and who is fast becoming as devout as yourself.  Were it not for her father, who will not listen to the thought of conversion before marriage, she would already be a Catholic, and—­Protestants as they are for the moment—­she would never go anywhere but to church . . .  When she is altogether a Catholic, and under the protection of a Sainte-Claudine and a Sainte-Francoise, as you are under the protection of Saint-Claude and Saint-Francois, you will have to lay down your arms, old leaguer, and acknowledge the sincerity of the religious sentiments of that child who has never harmed you.”