They were standing in the middle of the floor, the soft light of the fire and of a great lamp on the table falling upon them.
"You have raised your price since we last met."
"Yes. I reckoned up the interest and added it. Besides, I really think a woman who was disappointed in being made your wife needs a hundred thousand francs to console her for your loss. Now, most men would not be worth more than thirty or forty thousand."
Madame de Fonblanque spoke quite cheerfully and even gaily. She tapped her pocket gracefully.
"Here I have those letters of yours. They never leave me—particularly the one proposing marriage, and the half dozen in which you call me your dearest Athanaise and reproach me bitterly for not loving you enough. Just imagine the hurricane of amusement they would cause if read out in court with proper elocutionary effect."
Madame de Fonblanque laughed, and Mr. Romaine positively blushed.
"What an infernal, infernal ass I was!"
"Yes, I thought so, too," responded the pretty and sprightly Frenchwoman—"I have
