The girl drew her thin shawl round her and hurried off. Savarin rejoined his friends. “Is that the way you console yourself for the absence of Madame?” asked De Breze, drily.
“Fie!” cried Savarin, indignantly; “such bad jokes are ill-timed. What strange mixtures of good and bad, of noble and base, every stratum of Paris life contains! There is that poor girl, in one way contemptible, no doubt, and yet in another way she has an element of grandeur. On the whole, at Paris, the women, with all their faults, are of finer mould than the men.”
“French gallantry has always admitted that truth,” said Lemercier. “Fox, Fox, Fox.” Uttering this cry, he darted forward after the dog, who had strayed a few yards to salute another dog led by a string, and caught the animal in his arms. “Pardon me,” he exclaimed, returning to his friends, “but there are so many snares for dogs at present. They are just coming into fashion for roasts, and Fox is so plump.”
“I thought,” said Savarin, “that it was resolved at all the sporting clubs that, be the pinch of famine ever so keen, the friend of man should not be eaten.”
“That was while the beef lasted; but since we have come to cats, who shall predict immunity to dogs? Quid intactum nefasti linquimus? Nothing is sacred from the hand of rapine.”
The church of the Madeleine now stood before them. Moblots were playing pitch-and-toss on its steps.
“I don’t wish you to accompany me, Messieurs,” said Lemercier, apologetically, “but I am going to enter the church.”
“To pray?” asked De Breze, in profound astonishment. “Not exactly; but I want to speak to my friend Rochebriant, and I know I shall find him there.”
“Praying?” again asked De Breze.
“Yes.”