s going
on, and your coquetry pains me terribly."

A slight flush rose in her cheeks at that reproach.

"I, a coquette! With whom?"

"With him," said the Irishman, pointing to the superb apelike bust.

She tried to laugh.

"The Nabob. What nonsense!"

"Do not lie. Do you think I am blind, that I don't understand all your
manoeuvres? You stay alone with him a long while. I was at the door
just now. I saw you." He lowered his voice as if his breath had failed
him. "What are you after, in heaven's name, you strange, heartless
child? I have seen you repel the handsomest, the noblest, the greatest.
That little de Gery devours you with his eyes, but you pay no heed to
him. Even the Duc de Mora has not succeeded in reaching your heart. And
this man, a shocking, vulgar creature, who isn't thinking of you, who
has something very different from love in his head--you saw how he went
away just now! What are you aiming at? What do you expect from him?"

"I intend--I intend that he shall marry me. There."

Coolly, in a softer tone, as if the confession had drawn her nearer to
the man she despised so bitterly, she set forth her reasons. She had
luxurious, extravagant tastes, unmethodical habits which nothing could
overcome and which would infallibly lead her to poverty and
destitution, and good Crenmitz too, who allowed herself to be ruined
without a word. In three years, four years at most, it would be all
over. And then would come debts and desperate expedients, the ragged
gowns and old shoes of poor artists' households. Or else the lover, the
keeper, that is to say slavery and degradation.

"Nonsense," said Jenkins. "What of me, am I not here?"

"Anything rather than you," she said, drawing herself up. "No, what I
must have, what I will have, is a husband to protect me from others and
from myself, to keep me from a mass of black things of which I am
afraid when life becomes a bore to me, from abysses into which I feel
that I may plunge,--some one who will love me while I work, and will
relieve my poor old exhausted fairy from doing sentry duty. That man
suits me and I have had my eye on him ever since I first saw him. He is
ugly to look at, but he seems kind; and then he is absurdly rich, and
wealth, in that degree, must be amusing. Oh! I know all about it. There
probably is some black spot in his life which has brought him good
luck. All that gold can't have been honestly come by. But tell me
truly, Jenkins, with your