The shop-front displayed something of all sorts: old manuscripts, ancient ledgers with mould spots on the edges, missals with damaged gilding, book-clasps and book-covers. To the upper panes were fastened assignats, old placards, plans of Paris, ballads, military franks with spots of blood, autographs of all ages, some verses by Madame Lafargue, two letters from Chateaubriand to ‘Pertuzé, Boot-maker, names of celebrities ancient and modern at the foot of an invitation to dinner, or perhaps a request for money, a complaint of poverty, a love letter, &c, enough to cure anyone of writing for ever. All the autographs were priced; and as Madame Astier paused for a moment before the window she might see next to a letter of Rachel, price 12L., a letter from Léonard Astier-Réhu to Petit Séquard, his publisher, price 2s. But this was not what she came for: she was trying to discover, behind the screen of green silk, the face of her intended customer, the master of the establishment. She was seized with a sudden fear: suppose he was not at home after all! The thought of Paul waiting gave her determination, and she went into the dark, close, dusty room. She was taken at once into a little closet behind, and began to explain her business to M. Bos, who, with his large red face and disordered hair, looked like a speaker at a public meeting. A temporary difficulty--her husband did not like to come himself--and so---- But before she could finish her lie, M. Bos, with a ‘Pray, madame, pray,’ had produced a cheque on the Crédit Lyonnais, and was accompanying her with the utmost politeness to her cab. ‘A very genteel person,’ he said to himself, much pleased with his acquisition, while she, as she took the cheque out of the glove into which it had been slipped, and looked again at the satisfactory figure, was thinking What a delightful man!’ She had no remorse, not even the slight recoil which comes from the mere fact that the thing is done. A woman has not these feelings. She wears natural blinkers, which prevent her from, seeing anything but the thing which she desires at the moment, and keep her from the reflections which at the critical moment embarrass a man. She thought at intervals, of course, of her husband’s anger when he discovered the theft, but she saw it, as it were, dim in the distance. Nay, it was rather a satisfaction to add this to all she had gone through since yesterday, and say to herself, ‘I can bear it for my child!’