g herself upon a chair, and placing cavalierly one foot
upon another, so as to display her leg, which was admirable,

"Do you know that it's perfectly stunning to see you here?" she
said to M. de Tregars. "Just imagine, for a moment, what a face
the Baron Three Francs Sixty-eight will make when he sees you!"

It was her father whom she called thus, since the day when she had
discovered that there was a German coin called thaler, which
represents three francs and sixty-eight centimes in French currency.

"You know, I suppose," she went on, "that papa has just been badly
stuck?"

M. de Tregars was excusing himself in vague terms; but it was one
of Mlle. Cesarine's habits never to listen to the answers which
were made to her questions.

"Favoral," she continued, "papa's cashier, has just started on an
international picnic. Did you know him?"

"Very little."

"An old fellow, always dressed like a country sexton, and with a
face like an undertaker. And the Baron Three Francs Sixty-eight,
an old bird, was fool enough to be taken in by him! For he was
taken in. He had a face like a man whose chimney is on fire, when
he came to tell us, mamma and myself, that Favoral had gone off
with twelve millions."

"And has he really carried off that enormous sum?"

"Not entire, of course, because it was not since day before
yesterday only that he began digging into the Mutual Credit's pile.
There were years that this venerable old swell was leading a
somewhat-variegated existence, in company with rather-funny ladies,
you know. And as he was not exactly calculated to be adored at par,
why, it cost papa's stockholders a pretty lively premium. But,
anyhow, he must have carried off a handsome nugget."

And, bouncing to the piano, she began an accompaniment loud enough
to crack the window-panes, singing at the same time the popular
refrain of the "Young Ladies of Pautin":

Cashier, you've got the bag;
Quick on your little nag,
And then, ho, ho, for Belgium!

Any one but Marius de Tregars would have been doubtless strangely
surprised at Mlle. de Thaller's manners. But he had known her for
some time already: he was familiar with her past life, her habits,
her tastes, and her pretensions. Until the age of fifteen, Mlle.
Cesarine had remained shut up in one of those pleasant Parisian
boarding-schools, where young ladies are initiated into the great
art of the toilet, and from which they em