"Nonsense! why, I should be too highly honored," said the Nabob, tickled in the most sensitive--because it had been the most expensive--part of his vanity; and, glancing about at the walls of the study, he added in the tone of a connoisseur: "You have some fine examples yourself." "Oh!" said the other modestly, "a few poor canvases. Pictures are so dear in these days--it's a taste so hard to gratify, a genuinely luxurious passion. A Nabob's passion," he added with a smile and a stealthy glance over his spectacles. They were two prudent gamblers face to face; Jansoulet, however, was somewhat at fault in that novel situation, in which he was obliged to walk warily, he who knew of no other mode of action than by bold, audacious strokes. "When I think," murmured the advocate, "that I have spent ten years covering these walls, and that I still have this whole panel to fill!" In truth, in the most conspicuous part of the high partition there was an empty space, a vacated space rather, for a great gilt-headed nail near the ceiling showed the visible, almost clumsy trace of the trap set for the poor innocent, who foolishly allowed himself to be taken in it. "My dear Monsieur Le Merquier," he said, in an engaging, affable tone, "I have a _Virgin_ by Tintoret just the size of your panel." It was impossible to read anything in the advocate's eyes, which had now taken refuge behind their gleaming shelter. "Permit me to hang it there, opposite your desk. It will give you an excuse for thinking of me sometimes--" "And for mitigating the strictures of my report, eh, Monsieur?" cried Le Merquier, springing to his feet, a threatening figure, with his hand on the bell. "I have seen many shameless performances in my life, but never anything equal to this. Such offers to me, in my own house!" "But, my dear colleague, I swear--" "Show him out," said the advocate to the surly servant who entered the room at that moment; and from the centre of his office, the door remaining open, before the whole parlor, where the prayers had ceased, he pursued Jansoulet,--who turned his back and hastened, mumbling incoherently, toward the outer door--with these crushing words: "You have insulted the honor of the whole Chamber in my person, Monsieur. Our colleagues shall be informed of it this very day; and, this additional offence being added to the others, you will learn to your sorrow that Paris is not the Orient, and the human conscience is not shamefully traded in and bartered here as it is there." Thereupon, having driven the money-changer from the temple, the just man closed his door, and approaching the green curtain, said in a tone which sounded sweet as honey after his pretended anger: "Was that about right, Baronne Marie?" XXI. THE SITTING.