A “have you finished, you old liar?” rose to Chupin’s lips, but respect for Mademoiselle Marguerite prevented him from uttering the words. “Then everything is decided,” she said, pleasantly. And with a smile she offered her hand to Chupin as one does in concluding a bargain. If he had yielded to his first impulse he would have thrown himself on his knees and kissed this hand of hers, the whitest and most beautiful he had ever seen. As it was, he only ventured to touch it with his finger-tips, and yet he changed color two or three times. “What a woman!” he exclaimed, when she had left them. “A perfect queen! A man would willingly allow himself to be chopped in pieces for her sake; and she’s as good and as clever as she’s handsome. Did you notice, monsieur, that she did not offer to pay me. She understood that I offered to work for her for my own pleasure, for my own satisfaction and honor. Heavens! how I should have chafed if she had offered me money. How provoked I should have been!” Chupin was so fascinated that he wished no reward for his toil! This was so astonishing that M. Fortunat remained for a moment speechless with surprise. “Have you gone mad, Victor?” he inquired at last. “Mad! I?--not at all; I’m only becoming----” He stopped short. He was going to add: “an honest man.” But it is scarcely proper to talk about the rope in the hangman’s house, and there are certain words which should never be pronounced in the presence of certain people. Chupin knew this, and so he quickly resumed: “When I become rich, when I’m a great banker, and have a host of clerks who spend their time in counting my gold behind a grating, I should like to have a wife of my own like that. But I must be off about my business now, so till we meet again, monsieur.”