her men to
get weighed among a crowd of spectators. She made them buy
ridiculous toys which they had to carry in their hands. The Prince
and the Chevalier began to think the joke was being carried too far.
Servigny and the drummers, alone, did not seem to be discouraged.

They finally came to the end of the place. Then she gazed at her
followers in a peculiar manner, with a shy and mischievous glance,
and a strange fancy came to her mind. She drew them up on the bank
of the river.

"Let the one who loves me the most jump into the water," she said.

Nobody leaped. A mob gathered behind them. Women in white aprons
looked on in stupor. Two troopers, in red breeches, laughed loudly.

She repeated: "Then there is not one of you capable of jumping into
the water at my desire?"

Servigny murmured: "Oh, yes, there is," and leaped feet foremost
into the river. His plunge cast a splash over as far as Yvette's
feet. A murmur of astonishment and gaiety arose in the crowd.

Then the young girl picked up from the ground a little piece of
wood, and throwing it into the stream: "Fetch it," she cried.

The young man began to swim, and seizing the floating stick in his
mouth, like a dog, he brought it ashore, and then climbing the bank
he kneeled on one knee to present it.

Yvette took it. "You are handsome," said she, and with a friendly
stroke, she caressed his hair.

A stout woman indignantly exclaimed: "Are such things possible!"

Another woman said: "Can people amuse themselves like that!"

A man remarked: "I would not take a plunge for that sort of a girl."

She again took Belvigne's arm, exclaiming in his face: "You are a
goose, my friend; you don't know what you missed."

They now returned. She cast vexed looks on the passers-by. "How
stupid all these people seem," she said. Then raising her eyes to
the countenance of her companion, she added: "You, too, like all the
rest."

M. de Belvigne bowed. Turning around she saw that the Prince and the
Chevalier had disappeared. Servigny, dejected and dripping, ceased
playing on the trumpet, and walked with a gloomy air at the side of
the two wearied young men, who also had stopped the drum playing.
She began to laugh dryly, saying:

"You seem to have had enough; nevertheless, that is what you call
having a good time, isn't it? You came for that; I have given you
your money's worth."

Then she walked on, saying nothing further; and suddenly Belvigne
perceived that she