and you make that
blatantly, as if you were the first people in the world to do it. Why,
France and England could buy and sell you, and most of you don't know
it. Mais, n'importe. I went begging to them, as I've told you. At first
they wouldn't hear of her at any price--didn't want an American. That
was bluff, to get a bigger _dot_. I had counted on it in advance. I knew
well enough that they'd take a Hottentot if there was money enough. For
the matter of that, Hottentot and American are much the same to them.
But I made it bluff for bluff. Oh, I'm sharp. I manage all my own
affairs in America--with advice. I've speculated a little in your
markets quite successfully. I know how I stand to within a few thousand
dollars of your money. I offered half a million of francs. They laughed
at it. I knew they would, but it's as much as they'd get with a French
girl. I went to a million--to a million and a half--to two millions. At
two millions--that would be--let me see--five into twenty makes
four--about four hundred thousand dollars of your money--they gave in.
Yes, they gave in. I expected them to hold out for it, and they did. But
at that figure they made all the concessions and gave in."

"And did he give in?" Davenant asked, with naive curiosity.

"Oh, I'd made sure of him beforehand. He and I understood each other
perfectly. He would have let it go at a million and a half. He was next
door to being in love with her besides. All he wanted was to be well
established, poor boy! But I meant to go up to two millions, anyhow. I
could afford it."

"Four hundred thousand dollars," Davenant said, with an idea that he
might convey a hint to her, "would be practically the sum--"

"I could afford it," she went on, "because of those ridiculous
copper-mines--the Hamlet and Tecla. I wasn't rich before that. My _dot_
was small. No Guion I ever heard of was able to save money. My father
was no exception."

"You are in the Hamlet and Tecla!" Davenant's blue eyes were wide open.
He was on his own ground. The history of the Hamlet and Tecla Mines had
been in his own lifetime a fairy-tale come true.

Madame de Melcourt nodded proudly. "My father had bought nearly two
thousand shares when they were down to next to nothing. They came to me
when he died. It was mere waste paper for years and years. Then all of a
sudden--pouff!--they began to go up and up--and I sold them when they
were near a thousand. I could have afforded the two millions