ould
possibly have imagined it--this last scene of my married life! I feel
inclined to laugh. How simple I have been, to allow myself to be taken in
by the few clever words she whispered yesterday, as she walked beside me,
by a tolerably pretty little phrase embellished as it was by the silence
of two o'clock in the morning, and all the wonderful enchantments of
night.

Ah! not more for Yves than for me, not more for me than for Yves, has any
feeling passed through that little brain, that little heart.

When I have looked at her long enough, I call:

"Hi! Chrysantheme!"

She turns confused, and reddening even to her ears at having been caught
at this work.

She is quite wrong, however, to be so much troubled, for I am, on the
contrary, delighted. The fear that I might be leaving her in some sadness
had almost given me a pang, and I infinitely prefer that this marriage
should end as it had begun, in a joke.

"That is a good idea of yours," I say; "a precaution which should always
be taken in this country of yours, where so many evil-minded people are
clever in forging money. Make haste and get through it before I start,
and if any false pieces have found their way into the number, I will
willingly replace them."

However, she refuses to continue before me, and I expected as much; to do
so would have been contrary to all her notions of politeness, hereditary
and acquired, all her conventionality, all her Japanesery. With a
disdainful little foot, clothed as usual in exquisite socks, with a
special hood for the great toe, she pushes away the piles of white
dollars and scatters them on the mats.

"We have hired a large, covered sampan," she says to change the
conversation, "and we are all going together--Campanule, Jonquille,
Touki, all your mousmes--to watch your vessel set sail. Pray sit down and
stay a few minutes."

"No, I really can not stay. I have several things to do in the town, you
see, and the order was given for every one to be on board by three
o'clock in time for muster before starting. Moreover, I would prefer to
escape, as you can imagine, while Madame Prune is still enjoying her
siesta; I should be afraid of being drawn into some corner, or of
provoking some heartrending parting scene."

Chrysantheme bows her head and says no more, but seeing that I am really
going, rises to escort me.

Without speaking, without the slightest noise, she follows me as we
descend the staircase and cross the gar