--and she pointed to the stalls in front of the houses at a right
angle to the Rue du Doyenne--"look! there are dealers in curiosities
and pictures----"

"Your cousin lives there."

"I know it, but she must not see us."

"And what do you want to do?" said the Baron, who, finding himself
within thirty yards of Madame Marneffe's windows, suddenly remembered
her.

Hortense had dragged her father in front of one of the shops forming
the angle of a block of houses built along the front of the Old
Louvre, and facing the Hotel de Nantes. She went into this shop; her
father stood outside, absorbed in gazing at the windows of the pretty
little lady, who, the evening before, had left her image stamped on
the old beau's heart, as if to alleviate the wound he was so soon to
receive; and he could not help putting his wife's sage advice into
practice.

"I will fall back on a simple little citizen's wife," said he to
himself, recalling Madame Marneffe's adorable graces. "Such a woman as
that will soon make me forget that grasping Josepha."

Now, this was what was happening at the same moment outside and inside
the curiosity shop.

As he fixed his eyes on the windows of his new _belle_, the Baron saw
the husband, who, while brushing his coat with his own hands, was