The discussion tailed off in an unprofitable argument. Bernard, who until then had kept silent, but who was beginning to fidget on his chair, at last could bear it no longer; with extreme, even exaggerated deference, as was his habit whenever he spoke to Edouard, but with a kind of sprightliness, which seemed to make a jest of his deference: “Forgive me, sir,” said he, “for knowing the title of your book, since I learnt it through my own indiscretion--which however you have been kind enough to pass over. But the title seemed to me to announce a story.” “Oh, tell us what the title is!” said Laura. “Certainly, my dear Laura, if you wish it.... But I warn you that I may possibly change it. I am afraid it’s rather deceptive.... Well, tell it them, Bernard.” “May I?... _The Counterfeiters_,” said Bernard. “But now _you_ tell us--who are these Counterfeiters?” “Oh dear! I don’t know,” said Edouard. Bernard and Laura looked at each other and then looked at Sophroniska. There was a long sigh; I think it was drawn by Laura. In reality, Edouard had in the first place been thinking of certain of his fellow novelists when he began to think of _The Counterfeiters_, and in particular of the Comte de Passavant. But this attribution had been considerably widened; according as the wind blew from Rome or from elsewhere, his heroes became in turn either priests or free-masons. If he allowed his mind to follow its bent, it soon tumbled headlong into abstractions, where it was as comfortable as a fish in water. Ideas of exchange, of depreciation, of inflation, etc., gradually invaded his book (like the theory of clothes in Carlyle’s _Sartor Resartus_) and usurped the place of the characters. As it was impossible for Edouard to speak of this, he kept silent in the most awkward manner, and his silence, which seemed like an admission of penury, began to make the other three very uncomfortable. “Has it ever happened to you to hold a counterfeit coin in your hands?” he asked at last. “Yes,” said Bernard; but the two women’s “No” drowned his voice. “Well, imagine a false ten-franc gold piece. In reality it’s not worth two sous. But it will be worth ten francs as long as no one recognizes it to be false. So if I start from the idea that....” “But why start from an idea?” interrupted Bernard impatiently. “If you were to start from a fact and make a good exposition of it, the idea would come of its own accord to inhabit it. If I were writing _The Counterfeiters_ I should begin by showing the counterfeit coin--the little ten-franc piece you were speaking of just now.” So saying, he pulled out of his pocket a small coin, which he flung on to the table.