At noon a window was opened, and a maid-servant’s hand was put out to push back the padded shutters. A few minutes later, Esther, in her dressing-gown, came to breathe the air, leaning on Lucien; any one who saw them might have taken them for the originals of some pretty English vignette. Esther was the first to recognize the basilisk eyes of the Spanish priest; and the poor creature, stricken as if she had been shot, gave a cry of horror. “There is that terrible priest,” said she, pointing him out to Lucien. “He!” said Lucien, smiling, “he is no more a priest than you are.” “What then?” she said in alarm. “Why, an old villain who believes in nothing but the devil,” said Lucien. This light thrown on the sham priest’s secrets, if revealed to any one less devoted than Esther, might have ruined Lucien for ever. As they went along the corridor from their bedroom to the dining-room, where their breakfast was served, the lovers met Carlos Herrera. “What have you come here for?” said Lucien roughly. “To bless you,” replied the audacious scoundrel, stopping the pair and detaining them in the little drawing-room of the apartment. “Listen to me, my pretty dears. Amuse yourselves, be happy--well and good! Happiness at any price is my motto.--But you,” he went on to Esther, “you whom I dragged from the mud, and have soaped down body and soul, you surely do not dream that you can stand in Lucien’s way?--As for you, my boy,” he went on after a pause, looking at Lucien, “you are no longer poet enough to allow yourself another Coralie. This is sober prose. What can be done with Esther’s lover? Nothing. Can Esther become Madame de Rubempre? No.