nce disarm her fleet?--Henri! why, he is a dagger
in a sheath hanging on a nail. That boy serves as a weather-glass to
show me if you love me--and you don't love me this morning."

"I don't love you, Valerie?" cried Crevel. "I love you as much as a
million."

"That is not nearly enough!" cried she, jumping on to Crevel's knee,
and throwing both arms round his neck as if it were a peg to hang on
by. "I want to be loved as much as ten millions, as much as all the
gold in the world, and more to that. Henri would never wait a minute
before telling me all he had on his mind. What is it, my great pet?
Have it out. Make a clean breast of it to your own little duck!"

And she swept her hair over Crevel's face, while she jestingly pulled
his nose.

"Can a man with a nose like that," she went on, "have any secrets from
his _Vava--lele--ririe_?"

And at the _Vava_ she tweaked his nose to the right; at _lele_ it went
to the left; at _ririe_ she nipped it straight again.

"Well, I have just seen--" Crevel stopped and looked at Madame
Marneffe.

"Valerie, my treasure, promise me on your honor--ours, you know?--not
to repeat a single word of what I tell you."

"Of course, Mayor, we know all about that. One hand up--so--and one
foot--so!" And she put herself in an attitude which, to use Rabelais'
phrase, stripped Crevel bare from his brain to his heels, so quaint
and delicious was the nudity revealed through the light film of lawn.

"I have just seen virtue in despair."

"Can despair possess virtue?" said she, nodding gravely and crossing
her arms like Napoleon.

"It is poor Madame Hulot. She wants two hundred thousand francs, or
else Marshal Hulot and old Johann Fischer will blow their brains out;
and as you, my little Duchess, are partly at the bottom of the
mischief, I am going to patch matters up. She is a saintly creature, I
know her well; she will repay you every penny."

At the name of Hulot, at the words two hundred thousand francs, a
gleam from Valerie's eyes flashed from between her long eyelids like
the flame of a cannon through the smoke.

"What did the old thing do to move you to compassion? Did she show you
--what?--her--her religion?"

"Do not make game of her, sweetheart; she is a very saintly, a very
noble and pious woman, worthy of all respect."

"Am I not worthy of respect then, heh?" answered Valerie, with a
threatening gaze at Crevel.

"I never said so," replied he, understanding that the prais