"Have you read that paper?"
"The marked part of it, yes."
"You know that that sheet is never read, it has no circulation whatever, it lives from its advertisements. There is no use in taking any notice of it."
"If there were question only of myself, I should not take any notice of it. But they have mixed up in this scandal the name of the woman to whom I have given my name. I wish to know who did it, and why he did it."
"Oh! for nothing, for fun! Because this Monsieur—how does he sign himself?—Puck had nothing else to write about."
"It is certainly absurd," remarked Zilah, "to imagine that a man can live in the ideal. At every step the reality splashes you with mud."
As he spoke, he moved toward the door.
"Where are you going?" asked Varhely again.
"To the office of this journal."
"Do not commit such an imprudence. The article, which has made no stir as yet, will be read and talked of by all Paris if you take any notice of it, and it will be immediately commented upon by the correspondents of the Austrian and Hungarian journals."