Old Hoskins used to
say my figures would be the ruin of me.

The tone of honest sorrow in which he said this threw Julia into a fit
of laughing.

"Here is the total of our worldly wealth," said she, emptying on a
rustic table the leather bag, and running her fingers through a mass of
silver in which a few gold coins glittered.

[Illustration: 298]

"It seems very little, Julia," said he, despondingly.

"Worse than that. It is less than it looks, George; these tarnished
pieces, with a mock air of silver, are of most ignoble origin; they were
born copper, and are only silver by courtesy. Let me see what it all
makes."

While she was arranging the money in little piles on the table
L'Estrange lighted a cigarette, and puffed it in leisurely fashion.

"Julia," said he, at last, "I hope I haven't committed a dreadful folly
in that investment of your two thousand. You know I took the shares I
told you of?"

"I remember, George, you said so; but has anything occurred to make you
augur ill of the enterprise?"

"No; I know no more of it now than on the first day I heard of it. I
was dazzled by the splendid promise of twenty per cent instead of three
that you had received heretofore. It seemed to me to be such a paltry
fear to hesitate about doing what scores of others were venturing. I
felt as if I were turning away from a big fence while half the field
were ready to ride at it. In fact, I made it a question of courage,
Julia, which was all the more inexcusable as the money I was risking was
not my own."

"Oh, George, you must not say that to me."

"Well, well, I know what I think of myself, and I promise you it is not
the more favorable because of your generosity."

"My dear George, that is a word that ought never to occur between us.
Our interests are inseparable. When you have done what you believed was
the best for me there is no question of anything more. There, now, don't
worry yourself further about it. Attend to what I have to say to you
here. We have just one hundred and twelve francs to carry us to Milan,
where our letter of credit will meet us; so that there must be no more
boat excursions; no little picnics, with a dainty basket sent up the
mountain at sunrise; none of that charming liberality which lights up
the road with pleasant faces, and sets one a-thinking how happy Dives
might have been if he had given something better than crumbs to Lazarus.
No, this must be what you used to call a week of co