make me four ball gowns, nine visiting and house costumes, some little négligées and things, and about eighteen hats. And here are the bills.”

[69]

With this Léontine drew out two huge bills and thrust them into Papa Bouchard’s scowling face. Not only was he annoyed with Léontine for her extravagance, but he was conscious that she had fooled him. He sat perfectly still and silent, glaring into Léontine’s serious, pretty countenance—not so serious, though, but that Papa Bouchard saw the shadow of a smile on her rose-lipped mouth.

“And you expect to pay those bills out of your allowance, I presume?” said Papa Bouchard, sarcastically, after a moment.

“You flatter me,” replied Léontine. “I always knew I was a good financier, but to expect me to pay such bills as these out of my meagre allowance is[70] to credit me with the financial genius of a Rothschild.”

[70]

“Then they will go unpaid!” cried Papa Bouchard, determinedly. This assault on him, following hard on Captain de Meneval’s, was rather more than he could stand. Léontine did not know it, but the defeat Papa Bouchard had just suffered at the hands of that good-looking scapegrace, her husband, had hardened his heart against her and her milliner’s and tailor’s bills. However, she was not easily frightened. She only tapped her little foot, smiled loftily and said:

“But they must be paid!”

Papa Bouchard, who had no more voice than a crow, began to hum a tune and to turn over the leaves of a scientific journal that lay on the table before him. A pause followed. Then Léontine said again, very softly and very determinedly:

“And they will be paid.”

“How, may I ask?” inquired Papa[71] Bouchard, whirling round on her. Léontine, throwing aside her chiffon scarf, which she had held round her bare, white neck, showed a string of diamonds, as she thought them to be—paste, Papa Bouchard knew them to be—and said:

[71]

“My wedding gift from Victor. They are worth forty thousand francs. I can easily raise ten thousand on them.”

Papa Bouchard lay back in his chair, absolutely stunned. So, both of them were for turning the necklace into cash! And what scandal would be precipitated if Léontine carried out 

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