en with him since ten o'clock.'

'Well?'

'Your ladyship, that is exactly the word with which he accosted me.'

'Ah, you see an additional likeness between my uncle and myself this
morning, then? Has he told you about Mr. Carter?'

'Yes.'

'So now you understand how important it is that I should regain
possession of my property?'

'Yes,' I said with a sigh; 'the house near Hyde Park and the great
estate in Derbyshire.'

She clapped her hands with glee, eyes and feet dancing in unison, as
she capered along gaily beside me; a sort of skippety-hop,
skippety-hop, sideways, keeping pace with my more stately step, as if
she were a little girl of six instead of a young woman of twenty.

'Not only that!' she cried, 'but one million pounds to spend! Oh,
Monsieur Valmont, you know Paris, and yet you do not seem to
comprehend what that plethora of money means!'

'Well, madame, I have seen Paris, and I have seen a good deal of the
world, but I am not so certain you will secure the million to spend.'

'What!' she cried, stopping short, that little wrinkle which betokened
temper appearing on her brow. 'Do you think we won't get the emeralds
then?'

'Oh, I am sure we will get the emeralds. I, Valmont, pledge you my
word. But if Mr. Jonas Carter before marriage calls a halt upon the
ceremony until your uncle places fifty thousand pounds upon the table,
I confess I am very pessimistic about your obtaining control of the
million afterwards.'

All her vivacity instantaneously returned.

'Pooh!' she cried, dancing round in front of me, and standing there
directly in my path, so that I came to a stand. 'Pooh!' she repeated,
snapping her fingers, with an inimitable gesture of that lovely hand.
'Monsieur Valmont, I am disappointed in you. You are not nearly so
nice as you were last evening. It is very uncomplimentary in you to
intimate that when once I am married to Mr. Jonas I shall not wheedle
from him all the money I want. Do not rest your eyes on the ground;
look at me and answer!'

I glanced up at her, and could not forbear laughing. The witchery of
the wood was in that girl; yes, and a perceptible trace of the Gallic
devil flickered in those enchanting eyes of hers. I could not help
myself.

'Ah, Madame la Marquise de Bellairs, how jauntily you would scatter
despair in that susceptible Court of Louis!'

'Ah, Monsieur Eugene de Valmont,' she cried, mimicking my tones, and
imitating my manner with an exactitude that