"Well! I can't do anything else! I'll send her a little brooch--in diamonds--rose ones--something not too expensive; and yet it must be pretty; for if it isn't, I know her well enough to know that she is quite capable of making a fool of me again. Oh! these women! to think that I never spent a sou on them! And this little hussy has made me depart from my custom, and now I'm as big a fool as other men." The next day, when he presented himself at his neighbor's door, Monsieur de Mardeille was amiable and lively and in high spirits; one would have taken him for a boy of twenty. Having taken a seat beside Georgette, he took a little pasteboard box from his pocket and handed it to her, saying: "Allow me, my charming friend, to offer you this token, this proof, of my affection; and be assured that in offering it to you I do not consider that it gives me the slightest claim to your love; I desire to owe that to your heart alone." "Good! that is very well said," replied Georgette, hastily opening the box, in which she found a little brooch, worth eight or nine hundred francs, and very effective. "Oh! this is most gallant of you!" she cried. "Really, monsieur, you are coming on!" "What's that? I am coming on?" thought Mardeille; "what does she mean by that? No matter! I won't ask any questions. This will touch her, and I am sure that to-morrow she will be the one to say: 'I expect you to-night.'" "This is a lovely brooch," said Georgette. "And you will deign to accept it?" "Will I accept it? Most assuredly, monsieur, and I am very grateful to you." "She is grateful for it; that's good!" said our seducer to himself; "the rest will go of itself. I won't commit the blunder of seeking payment now for my present; I'll go away, that will be more adroit.--I am obliged to leave you, my dear neighbor," he said, rising. "Already, monsieur?" "That word is very pleasant in your mouth!--Yes--I have some urgent business to attend to. I leave you so soon with the greatest regret, but to-morrow, I hope, I shall be more fortunate." "I hope so, too, monsieur." Mardeille bowed most respectfully to the young woman; without even taking her hand. He took his leave, enchanted with what he had done. "I have taken the right way," he thought. "Women are stubborn, as a general rule; to refrain from asking them for anything is enough to induce them to grant you everything. The little one is mine now!" XIV COLINET'S SECOND VISIT On the day following the gift of the brooch, Monsieur de Mardeille, buoyed up by the sweetest hopes, left his couch with this thought in his mind: "I will make a careful toilet, but I won't go to see my young friend too early; I must let her wish for my coming. After breakfast I will go to my window, and I am sure that Georgette will beckon me to come to her. Yes, that is the more adroit way."