on as the civil ceremony is completed."

With firmly compressed lips and clenched hands, the Count sat listening
to these conditions.

"And who can tell me," said he, "that you will keep your engagements,
and that these papers will be restored to me at all?"

Tantaine looked at him with a air of pity.

"Your own good sense," answered he. "What more could we expect to get
out of you than your daughter and your money?"

The Count did not answer, but paced up and down the room, eyeing the
ambassador keenly, and endeavoring to detect some weak point in his
manner of cynicism and audacity. Then speaking in the calm tone of a man
who had made up his mind, he said,--

"You hold me as in a vice, and I admit myself vanquished. Stringent as
your conditions are, I accept them."

"That is the right style of way to talk in," remarked Tantaine
cheerfully.

"Then," continued the Count, with a ray of hope gleaming in his face,
"why should I give my daughter to De Croisenois at all?--surely this
is utterly unnecessary. What you want is simply six hundred thousand
francs; well, you can have them, and leave me Sabine."

He paused and waited for the reply, believing that the day was his; but
he was wrong.

"That would not be the same thing at all," answered Tantaine. "We should
not gain our ends by such means."

"I can do more," said the Count. "Give me six months, and I will add a
million to the sum I have already offered."

Tantaine did not appear impressed by the magnitude of this offer. "I
think," remarked he, "that it will be better to close this interview,
which, I confess, is becoming a little annoying. You agreed to accept
the conditions. Are you still in that mind?"

The Count bowed. He could not trust himself to speak.

"Then," went on Tantaine, "I will take my leave. Remember, that as you
fulfil your engagement, so we will keep to ours."

He had laid his hand on the handle of the door, when the Count said,--

"Another word, if you please. I can answer for myself and Madame de
Mussidan, but how about my daughter?"

Tantaine's face changed. "What do you mean?" asked he.

"My daughter may refuse to accept M. de Croisenois."

"Why should she? He is good-looking, pleasant, and agreeable."

"Still she may refuse him."

"If mademoiselle makes any objection," said the old man in peremptory
accents, "you must let me see her for a few minutes, and after that you
will have no further difficulty with her."

"Why,