voice, to push the advantage she had gained. After another quarter an hour, when she thought she had him secure, she suddenly offered him the necklace for three hundred francs, and he yielded; his mania for giving, his desire to please his idol, to adorn her, conquered. When he went to the desk to take the fifteen gold pieces to count them out to the dealer, he felt convinced that the notary’s affairs would be arranged, and that they would soon have plenty of money. When Pascal found himself once more alone, with the ornament in his pocket, he was seized with a childish delight, and he planned his little surprise, while waiting, excited and impatient, for Clotilde’s return. The moment she made her appearance his heart began to beat violently. She was very warm, for an August sun was blazing in the sky, and she laid aside her things quickly, pleased with her walk, telling him, laughing, of the good bargain Martine had made—two pigeons for eighteen sous. While she was speaking he pretended to notice something on her neck. “Why, what have you on your neck? Let me see.” He had the necklace in his hand, and he succeeded in putting it around her neck, while feigning to pass his fingers over it, to assure himself that there was nothing there. But she resisted, saying gaily: “Don’t! There is nothing on my neck. Here, what are you doing? What have you in your hand that is tickling me?” He caught hold of her, and drew her before the long mirror, in which she had a full view of herself. On her neck the slender chain showed like a thread of gold, and the seven pearls, like seven milky stars, shone with soft luster against her satin skin. She looked charmingly childlike. Suddenly she gave a delighted laugh, like the cooing of a dove swelling out its throat proudly. “Oh, master, master, how good you are! Do you think of nothing but me, then? How happy you make me!” And the joy which shone in her eyes, the joy of the woman and the lover, happy to be beautiful and to be adored, recompensed him divinely for his folly. She drew back her head, radiant, and held up her mouth to him. He bent over and kissed her. “Are you happy?” “Oh, yes, master, happy, happy! Pearls are so sweet, so pure! And these are so becoming to me!” For an instant longer she admired herself in the glass, innocently vain of her fair flower-like skin, under the nacre drops of the pearls. Then, yielding to a desire to show herself, hearing the servant moving about outside, she ran out, crying: “Martine, Martine! See what master has just given me! Say, am I not beautiful!”