Doubtless she did not long remain ignorant of the real position of the Marchioness and her husband, but she dismissed the thought of it, not wishing to be worried, and indeed she was at last unable to dispense with that caressing friend, who was ever in admiration before her, and who lavished on her such loving and pleasing expressions as 'my pussy,' 'my beautiful darling,' 'my dear treasure.' A more touching friendship was never seen, and the Marchioness soon had her room and her place at table at La Désirade. Then another idea of genius came to her. She undertook to convert Lia to the Catholic faith. The young wife was at first terrified by the idea, for she feared that she might be overwhelmed with religious exercises and observances. But, directly Father Crabot was brought into the affair, he, with his worldly graciousness, made the path quite easy. Yet the Countess was most won over by the enthusiasm which her father displayed for the Marchioness's idea. It was as if the Baron hoped that he would cleanse himself of some of his own horrid Jewry in the water of the young woman's baptism. When the ceremony took place it quite upset society in Beaumont, and it was always spoken of as a great triumph of the Church. As a final achievement, the motherly Marchioness de Boise, who directed the steps of Hector de Sanglebœuf as if he were her big, dull-witted, obedient child, had with the help of his wife's fortune caused him to be elected as one of the deputies of Beaumont, insisting too that he should join the little parliamentary group of Opportunist Reactionaries, who gave out that they had 'rallied' to the Republic; for by this course she hoped to raise him to some high political position. The amusing part of the affair was that Baron Nathan, who, scarce freed from the stigma of his Jewish ancestry, had become an uncompromising Royalist, now found himself a far more fervent partisan of the monarchy than his son-in-law, and this in spite of the latter's descent from a squire of St. Louis. The Baron, who had found an opportunity for personal triumph in the baptism of his daughter--on which occasion he had chosen her new 'Christian' name, Marie, by which he always addressed her with a kind of pious affectation--triumphed also in the election of his son-in-law as deputy, for he felt that he might be able to make use of him in the political world. But, apart from questions of interest, he quite enjoyed himself at La Désirade, which was now full of priests, and where all the talk was about the various pious works in which the Marchioness de Boise associated her friend Marie, with whom she became yet more intimate and loving.