“Very good, mademoiselle,” said la Peyrade in a tone of dismissal, beginning to edge the pair to the door.
Olympe Cardinal went first, leaving her mother to hurry after her as best she could.
“At home to no one!” cried Thuillier to the office-boy as he closed the door and slipped the bolt. “Now,” he said, addressing la Peyrade, “we will talk. My dear fellow,” he went on, starting with irony, for he remembered to have heard that nothing was more confusing to an adversary, “I have heard something that will give you pleasure. I know now why MY pamphlet was seized.”
So saying, he looked fixedly at la Peyrade.
“Parbleu!” said the latter in a natural tone of voice, “it was seized because they chose to seize it. They wanted to find, and they found, because they always find the things they want, what the king’s adherents call ‘subversive doctrine.’”
“No, you are wrong,” said Thuillier; “the seizure was planned, concocted, and agreed upon before publication.”
“Between whom?” asked la Peyrade.
“Between those who wanted to kill the pamphlet, and the wretches who were paid to betray it.”
“Well, in any case, those who paid,” said la Peyrade, “got mighty little for their money; for, persecuted though it was, I don’t see that your pamphlet made much of a stir.”
“Those who sold may have done better?” said Thuillier with redoubled irony.