one, begins for you. Bear in mind, at all moments, that
difficulty. The only means of harmonizing your two wills is to arrange
from the first that there shall be but one; and that will must be yours.
Many persons declare that a wife creates her own unhappiness by changing
sides in this way; but, my dear, she can only become the mistress
by controlling events instead of bearing them; and that advantage
compensates for any difficulty."

Natalie kissed her mother's hands with tears of gratitude. Like all
women in whom mental emotion is never warmed by physical emotion, she
suddenly comprehended the bearings of this feminine policy; but, like
a spoiled child that never admits the force of reason and returns
obstinately to its one desire, she came back to the charge with one of
those personal arguments which the logic of a child suggests:--

"Dear mamma," she said, "it is only a few days since you were talking
of Paul's advancement, and saying that you alone could promote it; why,
then, do you suddenly turn round and abandon us to ourselves?"

"I did not then know the extent of my obligations nor the amount of my
debts," replied the mother, who would not suffer her real motive to be
seen. "Besides, a year or two hence I can take up that matter again.
Come, let us dress; Paul will be here soon. Be as sweet and caressing
as you were,--you know?--that night when we first discussed this fatal
contract; for to-day we must save the last fragments of our fortune, and
I must win for you a thing to which I am superstitiously attached."

"What is it?"

"The 'Discreto.'"

Paul arrived about four o'clock. Though he endeavored to meet his
mother-in-law with a gracious look upon his face, Madame Evangelista saw
traces of the clouds which the counsels of the night and the reflections
of the morning had brought there.

"Mathias has told him!" she thought, resolving to defeat the old
notary's action. "My dear son," she said, "you left your diamonds in the
drawer of the console, and I frankly confess that I would rather not see
again the things that threatened to bring a cloud between us. Besides,
as Monsieur Mathias said, they ought to be sold at once to meet the
first payment on the estates you have purchased."

"They are not mine," he said. "I have given them to Natalie, and when
you see them upon her you will forget the pain they caused you."

Madame Evangelista took his hand and pressed it cordially, with a tear
of emotion.