oisel was agitated. Should she speak to her? Why, of course. And
now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?

She drew near.

"Good morning, Jeanne."

The other, astonished to be addressed so familiarly by this woman of the
people, did not recognize her. She stammered:

"But--madame--I do not know you. You must have made a mistake."

"No, I am Mathilde Loisel."

Her friend uttered a cry.

"Oh! my poor Mathilde, how changed you are!"

"Yes, I have had days hard enough since I saw you, days wretched
enough--and all because of you!"

"Me? How so?"

"You remember that necklace of diamonds that you lent me to wear to the
ministerial ball?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Well, I lost it."

"How can that be? You returned it to me."

"I returned to you another exactly like it. These ten years we've been
paying for it. You know it was not easy for us, who had nothing. At last
it is over, and I am very glad."

Madame Forestier was stunned.

"You say that you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"

"Yes; you did not notice it, then? They were just alike."

And she smiled with a proud and naive pleasure.

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took both her hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth five
hundred francs at most."

XI. THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING[*] (1888)

[* From "The Phantom 'Rickshaw."]

BY RUDYARD KIPLING (1865- )

[_Setting_. "They call it Kafiristan," said Dravot, the unfortunate hero
of the story. "By my reckoning it's the top right-hand corner of
Afghanistan, not more than three hundred miles from Peshawar."
Determined to be Kings of Kafiristan, Carnehan and Dravot started
probably from the capital of the Punjab, Lahore, where the newspaper
office seems to have been. Ten miles west of Peshawar they entered the
famous Khaiber (or Khyber) Pass, a region which Kipling describes more
at length in "The Man Who Was," "The Drums of the Fore and Aft," "The
Lost Legion," "Love o' Women," "Wee Willie Winkie," and "With the Main
Guard." No country in Asia is less known to civilization than
Kafiristan. The Mohammedan traders say that it is the most attractive
part of Afghanistan. The name means "country of unbelievers," the Kafirs
having resisted all attempts to convert them to the Mohammedan faith.
They are pure Aryans, being thus brothers to the Greeks, Romans,
Germans, English, and ourselves. They are noted for their beauty and
strength. India or rather A