Bos's shop-front; there were mortgageable debts to dealers in
curiosities, private jewellers, laundresses, yacht-builders, agents
for imitation-champagne from Touraine, receipts from stewards and
club-waiters, in short, every device of usury by which a man about
Paris comes to bankruptcy. Mari' Anto muttered under her breath, 'The
restoration of this gentleman cost more than Mousseaux, you see!... I
have had all these things in a drawer for years, because I never destroy
anything; but I solemnly declare that. I never thought of using them.
Now I have changed my mind. He is rich. I want my money and interest.
If he does not pay, I will take proceedings. Don't you think I am
justified?'

'Entirely justified,' said Paul, stroking the point of his fair beard,
'only--was not the Prince d'Athis incapable of contracting when he
signed these bills?'

'Yes, yes, I know... Bretigny told me about that... for as he could get
nothing through Lavaux, he wrote to Bretigny to ask him to arbitrate.
A fellow Academician, you know!' She laughed a laugh of impartial scorn
for the official dignities of the Ambassador and the ex-Minister. Then
she burst out indignantly, 'It is true that I need not have paid, but I
chose he should be clean. I don't want any arbitration. I paid and will
be paid back, or else I go into court, where the name and title of our
representative at St. Petersburg will be dragged through the dirt. If I
can only degrade the wretch, I shall have won the suit I care about.'

'I can't understand,' said Paul as he put down the packet so as to hide
the awkward letter to Mamma, 'I can't understand how such proofs should
have been left in your hands by a man as clever----'

'As D'Athis?'

The shrug of her shoulders sufficiently completed the interjection. But
the madness of a woman's anger may always lead to something, so he drew
her on. 'Yet he was one of our best diplomatists.'

'It was I who put him up to it. He knows nothing of the business but
what I taught him.'

She hid her face, as for shame, in her hands, checking her sobs and
gasping with fury. 'To think, to think, twelve years of my life to a man
like that! And now he leaves me; he casts me off! Cast off by him! Cast
off by him!'

It is some hours later, and she is still there. The young man is
upon his knees and is whispering tenderly: 'When you know that I love
you--when you know that I loved you always. Think, think!' The striking
of a clock is heard i