"Why did you not tell me?"

"Because Marguerite made me promise not to."

"And why did you not ask me for money?"

"Because she wouldn't let me."

"And where has this money gone?"

"In payments."

"Is she much in debt?"

"Thirty thousand francs, or thereabouts. Ah, my dear fellow, didn't
I tell you? You wouldn't believe me; now you are convinced. The
upholsterer whom the duke had agreed to settle with was shown out of the
house when he presented himself, and the duke wrote next day to say that
he would answer for nothing in regard to Mlle. Gautier. This man wanted
his money; he was given part payment out of the few thousand francs that
I got from you; then some kind souls warned him that his debtor had been
abandoned by the duke and was living with a penniless young man; the
other creditors were told the same; they asked for their money, and
seized some of the goods. Marguerite wanted to sell everything, but it
was too late, and besides I should have opposed it. But it was necessary
to pay, and in order not to ask you for money, she sold her horses and
her shawls, and pawned her jewels. Would you like to see the receipts
and the pawn tickets?"

And Prudence opened the drawer and showed me the papers.

"Ah, you think," she continued, with the insistence of a woman who can
say, I was right after all, "ah, you think it is enough to be in love,
and to go into the country and lead a dreamy, pastoral life. No, my
friend, no. By the side of that ideal life, there is a material life,
and the purest resolutions are held to earth by threads which seem
slight enough, but which are of iron, not easily to be broken. If
Marguerite has not been unfaithful to you twenty times, it is because
she has an exceptional nature. It is not my fault for not advising
her to, for I couldn't bear to see the poor girl stripping herself
of everything. She wouldn't; she replied that she loved you, and she
wouldn't be unfaithful to you for anything in the world. All that is
very pretty, very poetical, but one can't pay one's creditors in that
coin, and now she can't free herself from debt, unless she can raise
thirty thousand francs."

"All right, I will provide that amount."

"You will borrow it?"

"Good heavens! Why, yes!"

"A fine thing that will be to do; you will fall out with your father,
cripple your resources, and one doesn't find thirty thousand francs from
one day to another. Believe me, my dear Armand, I know women better