ntary hush was succeeded by a general buzz of
conversation, the subject of which was quite easily understood. The
stately dame du comptoir immediately opened her little wicket and came
down from her perch to show the couple to the best seats, a courtesy
rarely extended by that impersonation of restaurant dignity. The
hungry women almost stopped eating to see what man was in tow of the
"Savatiere."

"We are decidedly an event," laughingly observed Jean as they became
seated where they could command the general crowd at table.

"Yes, monsieur," replied the dame du comptoir, though his remark had
not been addressed to that lady,--"the fame of the brave Monsieur
Marot is well known in the quarter. And--and mademoiselle," she added,
sweetly, "mademoiselle--well, everybody knows mademoiselle."

With this under-cut at Mlle. Fouchette the rosy-cheeked cashier left
them in charge of the waitress of that particular table.

"You see, Monsieur Jean," said his companion, not at all pleased by
this reception, "we are both pretty well known here."

"So it seems. Yet I was never in here before, if I remember
correctly."

"Nor I," said she, "but once or twice."

Notoriety is fame to Frenchmen, and while he did not yet fully
comprehend it, Jean Marot had reached this sort of fame in a single
day. His name had been actively and even viciously discussed in the
newspapers. He was accused of being both royalist and anti-Dreyfusarde
by the ultra republican press. He was said to be a Bonapartist. The
Dreyfusarde papers declared that the government had connived at his
discharge from prison. The nationalist papers lauded him as a patriot.
One extravagant writer compared him to the celebrated Camille
Desmoulins who led the great Revolution. A noisy deputation had called
upon him in the Rue St. Honore to find that he had not been seen there
since the riot.

Of all of this Jean Marot actually knew less than any other
well-informed person in Paris. Being wholly absorbed in his domestic
affairs, he had scarcely more than glanced at a newspaper, and did not
at this moment know that his name had ever been printed in the Paris
journals. The few acquaintances he had met had congratulated him for
something, and some students he did not know had raised their hats to
him in the streets; and once he had been saluted by a class procession
with desultory cries of "Vive Marot!" Mere rioting was then too common
in Paris to excite particular attention i