time is ready money, and in six months it will be easier for me to pay
one hundred and forty thousand francs than a hundred thousand to-day. I
have plans."

"What?"

"Very difficult to explain, but quite clear in my mind! The important
part is not to have the date of maturity on the first of June, but on
the first of December."

"Then nothing is more simple. Madame Dujarrier will arrange it."

"Is Madame Dujarrier a providence then?"

"Almost," said Marianne coldly.

Sulpice was intoxicated with joy, realizing that he had before him all
the necessary time in which to free himself from his embarrassment, when
Marianne should have returned him his first acceptance for one hundred
thousand francs against a new one for one hundred and forty thousand. He
breathed again. From the twenty-sixth of April to the first of December,
he had nearly seven months in which to free himself. He repeated the
calculation that he had formerly made when he said: "I have ample time!"

He reentered the Hotel Beauvau in a cheerful mood, Adrienne was
delighted. She feared to see him return nervous and dejected.

"Then you will be brilliant presently at Madame Gerson's."

"Stop! that's so. It is this evening in fact!--"

He had forgotten it.

Marianne, too, was not free. She was going, she said, to Auteuil for
that bill of exchange. Vaudrey did not therefore, regret the soiree. His
going to Madame Gerson's was now a matter of indifference to him.

"As for me, I am so happy, oh! so happy!" said Adrienne, clapping her
little hands like a child.

In undressing, Vaudrey fortunately found this document which he had
folded in four and left in his waistcoat pocket:

"On the first of June next, I will pay to the order of Monsieur
Adolphe Gochard of No. 9, Rue Albouy, the sum of One Hundred
Thousand Francs, value received in cash.

"SULPICE VAUDREY,
"Rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin, 37."

He turned pale on reading it. If Adrienne had seen it!--

He burned the paper at a candle.

"I am imprudent," he said to himself. "Poor Adrienne! I should not like
to cause her any distress."

She was overjoyed as she made the journey in the ministerial carriage
from Place Beauvau to the Gersons' mansion. At last she had a rapid,
stolen moment in which she could recover the old-time joy of happy
solitude, full of the exquisite agitation of former days.

"Do you recall the time when you took me away like this, on t