prepared to offer any security that the loan would be repaid. If you had I should have given you this.” [53]De Meneval pulled from his pocket a glittering string of diamonds, every stone glittering like a star. [53] “This is the diamond necklace I gave Léontine on our marriage. Of course, I could not afford it, but I was in love with her—I’m more in love with her now—and I gave her what would please her, without counting the cost.” Papa Bouchard gasped. “And Léontine—does she know of this?” [54]De Meneval shook his head. “You see, when I bought this necklace for forty thousand francs the jeweller showed me at the same time an exact copy of it in paste—seventy-five francs. He told me when he sold a necklace like this he usually sold a counterfeit, for emergencies—you know. I bought the seventy-five franc necklace, too—and I didn’t mention it to Léontine. I think all the philosophers, beginning with the Egyptian school of something or other B. C., down through the Greeks and the Romans to Kant and Schopenhauer, agree that it is not philosophic for a married man to tell everything to his wife. So I never told Léontine about this imitation necklace, but kept it for an emergency, as the jeweller—a married man—advised me. To-night, when I saw I was in a tight place and had to come to you, I quietly slipped the paste necklace into the case, which we keep in our strong-box, and put the[55] real one into my pocket. I came within an ace of being caught by Léontine, though. The dear girl entered the room a minute afterward and asked me to get out her diamond necklace—she was going to the opera with some friends of hers—and off she’s gone, glittering with paste, and as innocent as a lamb, while here is the real thing.” [54] [55] Papa Bouchard was staggered for a minute or two. Then he said: “So you expected me to turn amateur pawnbroker for your benefit?” “Well,” replied de Meneval, stroking his moustache, “I should not have put it in that brutally frank fashion myself, but if you don’t care to act the amateur pawnbroker, I shall be obliged to take it to the professionals.” “No, no, no,” cried Papa Bouchard. He really was fond of Léontine, and didn’t mean to risk her diamonds. Nevertheless, there was a stand-and-deliver[56] air about the whole transaction which vexed him inexpressibly. He sat silent for a while and so did de
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