days, trying to see you alone.” [41] “Yes. I know that I have been honored with a good many cards of yours. Also of Léontine’s.” “Oh, Léontine! You may be sure she does not come on the errand that brings me. While she feels the narrowness of our income as much as I do, she manages to live within her allowance, and I don’t believe owes a franc in the world. But, Papa Bouchard, to come to business——” De Meneval paused. He had a good deal of courage, but the stony silence with which his confidences were met would have disconcerted an ogre. “Go on, Monsieur le Capitaine,” said Monsieur Bouchard, icily. “I’m going on. You see, it is just this way—that is—” de Meneval[42] floundered—“as I was going to say—Léontine, you know, is perfect—it really is touching to see how she bears our enforced but unnecessary poverty. I wish I could do as well.” [42] Here de Meneval came to a dead stop, and Monsieur Bouchard, by way of encouraging him, repeated, in the same tone: “Go on, Monsieur le Capitaine.” “But I can’t go on with you fixing that basilisk glare on me,” cried de Meneval, rising and walking about excitedly. “I believe, if you say, ‘Go on, Monsieur le Capitaine,’ to me again, I’ll do something desperate—smash the mirror with my stick, or turn on the fire alarm. I assure you, Monsieur Bouchard, I am still a respectable member of society. I don’t beat my wife or cheat at cards, and I have never committed a felony in my life.” “Glad to hear it,” was Papa Bouchard’s fatherly reception of this speech. De Meneval, after walking once or[43] twice up and down the room, succeeded in mastering his indignation, and sat quietly down in the chair he had just vacated, facing Monsieur Bouchard, and then, still floundering awkwardly, managed to say: [43] “I—I—am very much in want—I am, at present—in short, I am in the most unpleasant predicament.” And then he mumbled, “Money.” “So I knew the moment you entered this room,” was Monsieur Bouchard’s rejoinder. “Then, sir,” said de Meneval, recovering his spirits now that the
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