"Tell me what they are quickly," the Count declared. "I am impatient. I cannot bear that you keep me waiting. Let me know of my happiness." The Princess was suddenly uneasy. There was one weak point in her schemes, a weakness of her own creating. Ever since she had told Jeanne the truth about her lack of fortune, she had felt that it was a mistake. Suppose she should be idiot enough to give the thing away! The Princess felt her heart beat fast at the mere supposition. There was something about Jeanne's delicate oval face, her straight mouth and level eyebrows, which somehow suggested that gift which to the Princess was so incomprehensible in her sex, the gift of honesty. Suppose Jeanne were to tell the Count the truth! "First of all, then," Jeanne said, "I must ask you whether my stepmother has told the truth about myself and my fortune." The Princess knew then that the game was up. She sank back upon the sofa, and at that moment she would have declared that there was nothing in the world more terrible than an ungrateful and inconsiderate child. "The truth?" the Count remarked, a little puzzled. "I know only what the world knows, that you are the daughter of Carl le Mesurier, and that he left you the residue of one of the greatest fortunes in Europe." Jeanne drew a letter from her pocket. "The Princess," she remarked, "must have forgotten to tell you. This great fortune that all the world has spoken of, and that seems to have made me so famous, has been all the time something of a myth. It has existed only in the imaginations of my kind friends. A few days ago my stepmother here told me of this. I wrote at once to Monsieur Laplanche, my trustee. She would not let me send the letter. When I was at Salthouse, however, I wrote again, and this time I had a reply. It is here. There is a statement," she continued, "which covers many pages, and which shows exactly how my father's fortune was exaggerated, how securities have dwindled, and how my stepmother's insisting upon a very large allowance during my school-days, has eaten up so much of the residue. There is left to me, it appears, a sum of fourteen thousand pounds. That is a very small fortune, is it not?" she asked calmly. The Count was gazing at her as one might gaze upon a tragedy. "It is not a fortune!" he exclaimed. "It is not even a dot! It is nothing at all, a year's income, a trifle." "Nevertheless," Jeanne said calmly, "it is all that I possess. You see," she continued, "I have come back to my stepmother to tell her that if I am bound by law to do as she wishes until I am of age, I will be dutiful and marry the man whom she chooses for me, but I wish to tell you two things quite frankly. The first you have just heard. The second is that I do not care for you in the least, that in fact I rather dislike you."