“If your former friend the young marquis should meet us, he might pay me a few more compliments behind, and I can do without them.” “Bah!” retorted Daréna, “you always look at the dark side. For my part, I would like to meet Chérubin. I would go up to him with a laugh, and I would say: ‘Who ever heard of friends falling out for a jest? I obtained your introduction to a charming girl; instead of being a Pole, she was an Alsatian, but what’s the difference? And, faith, it isn’t my fault that you went to sleep in her company!’--I’ll bet that he would shake hands with me, and all would be forgotten.” “Hum! I don’t think it! If you knew how his friend Monfréville gave it to you!” “Ta! ta! mere empty words! nonsense! I am above all that!” The two worthies were walking on when Poterne, spying Louise standing a few steps from the hôtel de Grandvilain, upon which her eyes seemed to be fixed, put his hand on Daréna’s arm, saying: “Look--yonder, at the right.” “Bigre! what a pretty girl! What in the devil is she doing there, in rapt contemplation, before the door of Chérubin’s house? Do you know, Poterne, that girl is perfectly bewitching! The more one looks at her, the more charms one discovers.” “Yes, and it’s not Parisian style; however, she’s something more than a peasant. She has a bundle under her arm--do you suppose she has just arrived from the provinces?” “She is still staring at the house. I certainly must find out what she is doing here.” “What are you going to do?” “I don’t know yet, but I am a Frenchman, and a lady’s man before everything; and I am bound to aid and protect the fair sex. Forward, and you will see. Walk beside me, idiot!” Daréna and Poterne crossed the street and walked toward Louise; when they were near her, Daréna stopped and said in a loud tone: “Monsieur Poterne, as we are passing through this street, suppose we stop and bid our good friend, Marquis Chérubin de Grandvilain good-morning? this is his house. You know that he is constantly asking us to breakfast with him.” Poterne enveloped himself closely in his box-coat and replied: “It’s too early as yet; no one is up in the marquis’s house.” These words were not lost on Louise, who started at the name of Chérubin. She approached Daréna and said to him timidly: “Excuse me, monsieur, but as you are a friend of Monsieur de Grandvilain, who lives in this house, perhaps you know Monsieur de Monfréville also?” At that name Poterne made a wry face; but Daréna replied as amiably as possible: “Yes, my lovely maiden, I know Monfréville; indeed, I am intimately acquainted with him. Have you business with him?” “I have a letter for him, but I do not know his address, and I was told that I could learn it at Monsieur Chérubin’s; but, although I know Monsieur Chérubin, I dared not go into his house.” “Ah! so you know my friend Chérubin, mademoiselle? In that case he must have spoken to me about you, for I was his most intimate confidant.”