harsh with him."

Henriette listened, the picture of surprise; she could not recover from
her amazement. "What! you don't mean to say it was the little sergeant!
Why, my dear, everyone believes the Prussian to be your lover!"

Gilberte straightened herself up with an indignant air, and dried her
eyes. "The Prussian my lover? No, thank you! He's detestable; I can't
endure him. I wonder what they take me for? What have I ever done that
they should suppose I could be guilty of such baseness? No, never!
I would rather die than do such a thing!" In the earnestness of her
protestations her beauty had assumed an angry and more lofty cast that
made her look other than she was. And all at once, sudden as a flash,
her coquettish gayety, her thoughtless levity, came back to her face,
accompanied by a peal of silvery laughter. "I won't deny that I amuse
myself at his expense. He adores me, and I have only to give him a look
to make him obey. You have no idea what fun it is to bamboozle that
great big man, who seems to think he will have his reward some day."

"But that is a very dangerous game you're playing," Henriette gravely
said.

"Oh, do you think so? What risk do I incur? When he comes to see he has
nothing to expect he can't do more than be angry with me and go away.
But he will never see it! You don't know the man; I read him like a book
from the very start: he is one of those men with whom a woman can do
what she pleases and incur no danger. I have an instinct that guides me
in these matters and which has never deceived me. He is too consumed by
vanity; no human consideration will ever drive it into his head that by
any possibility a woman could get the better of him. And all he will
get from me will be permission to carry away my remembrance, with the
consoling thought that he has done the proper thing and behaved himself
like a gallant man who has long been an inhabitant of Paris." And with
her air of triumphant gayety she added: "But before he leaves he shall
cause Uncle Fouchard to be set at liberty, and all his recompense for
his trouble shall be a cup of tea sweetened by these fingers."

But suddenly her fears returned to her: she remembered what must be
the terrible consequences of her indiscretion, and her eyes were again
bedewed with tears.

"_Mon Dieu!_ and Madame Delaherche--how will it all end? She bears me no
love; she is capable of telling the whole story to my husband."

Henriette had recovered her