and capable.
Now that he had an income, he needed a title. It was quite right.

The jeweler bowed them out, saying: "You can depend upon me; it will be
ready on Thursday, Baron."

They paused before the Vaudeville, at which a new piece was being
played.

"If you like," said he, "we will go to the theater this evening. Let us
see if we can have a box."

They took a box, and he continued: "Suppose we dine at a restaurant."

"Oh, yes; I should like that!"

He was as happy as a king, and sought what else they could do. "Suppose
we go and ask Madame de Marelle to spend the evening with us. Her
husband is at home, I hear, and I shall be delighted to see him."

They went there. George, who slightly dreaded the first meeting with his
mistress, was not ill-pleased that his wife was present to prevent
anything like an explanation. But Clotilde did not seem to remember
anything against him, and even obliged her husband to accept the
invitation.

The dinner was lovely, and the evening pleasant. George and Madeleine
got home late. The gas was out, and to light them upstairs, the
journalist struck a wax match from time to time. On reaching the
first-floor landing the flame, suddenly starting forth as he struck,
caused their two lit-up faces to show in the glass standing out against
the darkness of the staircase. They resembled phantoms, appearing and
ready to vanish into the night.

Du Roy raised his hand to light up their reflections, and said, with a

laugh of triumph: "Behold the millionaires!"

XV

The conquest of Morocco had been accomplished two months back. France,
mistress of Tangiers, held the whole of the African shore of the
Mediterranean as far as Tripoli, and had guaranteed the debt of the
newly annexed territory. It was said that two ministers had gained a
score of millions over the business, and Laroche-Mathieu was almost
openly named. As to Walter, no one in Paris was ignorant of the fact
that he had brought down two birds with one stone, and made thirty or
forty millions out of the loan and eight to ten millions out of the
copper and iron mines, as well as out of a large stretch of territory
bought for almost nothing prior to the conquest, and sold after the
French occupation to companies formed to promote colonization. He had
become in a few days one of the lords of creation, one of those
omnipotent financiers more powerful than monarchs who cause heads to
bow, mouths to stammer, and all t