instincts that are latent in the sanest and the wisest of us
were fed and fattened and pampered until her head was quite turned.
And the general began to buy jewels for her. Such jewels--ropes of
diamonds and pearls and emeralds, rings such as she had never dreamed
existed! Those shopping excursions of theirs in the Rue de la Paix
would make such a tale as your ordinary simple citizen, ignorant of the
world's resources in luxury and therefore incredulous about them, would
read with a laugh at the extravagance of the teller.

Before the intoxication of the wedding had worn away it was re-enforced
by the intoxication of the honeymoon--not an intoxication of love's
providing, but one exceeding potent in its influence upon our weak
human brains and hearts, one from which the strongest of us, instead of
sneering at poor Mildred, would better be praying to be delivered.

At her marriage she had a few hundred dollars left of her
patrimony--three hundred and fifty and odd, to be more exact. She
spent a little money of her own here and there--in tips, in buying
presents for her mother, in picking up trifles for her own toilet. The
day came when she looked in her purse and found two one-franc pieces, a
fifty-franc note, and a few coppers. And suddenly she sat back and
stared, her mouth open like her almost empty gold bag, which the
general had bought her on their first day in the Rue de la Paix. About
ten dollars in all the world, and the general had forgotten to
speak--or to make any arrangement, at least any arrangement of which
she was aware--about a further supply of money.

They had been married nearly a month. He knew that she was poor. Why
hadn't he said something or, better still, DONE something? Doubtless
he had simply forgotten. But since he had forgotten for a month, might
he not continue to forget? True, he had himself been poor at one time
in his life, very poor, and that for a long time. But it had been so
many years ago that he had probably lost all sense of the meaning of
poverty. She frowned at this evidence of his lack of the finer
sensibilities--by no means the first time that lack had been
disagreeably thrust upon her. Soon she would be without money--and she
must have money--not much, as all the serious expenses were looked
after by the general, but still a little money. How could she get it?
How could she remind him of his neglect without seeming to be
indelicate? It was a difficult problem.