"I know it, Faustina." "Why then not let me go?" "I could not bear the thought of it, my precious treasure. I preferred to sacrifice myself. The opportunity occurred in this way. You know that I left England as the bearer of dispatches to our minister in the United States." "Yes." "The very day after I reached Washington I met at the evening reception at the President's house this Indian Princess, as she was called. I was no sooner presented to her than she began to exercise all her arts of fascination upon me. But my heart was steeled by its love for you against the charms of all others." "Ah! don't stop to pay compliments; go on." "Well, but I was good-natured, and I flattered her vanity by flirting with her a little." "A little!" repeated the woman, curling her beautiful lip. "Yes, only a little; for I had no idea of seriously addressing her until I discovered that she possessed in her own right one of the largest fortunes in the--world, I was going to say--and I should not have been far wrong, for she had in fact inherited three immense fortunes. This was the way of it. Her mother was the only child of a millionaire, and of course inherited the whole of her father's estate. She had also two bachelor uncles who had made immense fortunes in trade, and who left the whole to their niece, in her own right. She, dying young, bequeathed the whole unconditionally to her daughter." "Ciel! what good luck! How much is it all put together?" "About three millions of pounds sterling." "Ma foi! In what does it consist?" "It did consist in bank stock, railway shares, lead mines, city houses, iron foundries, tobacco plantations, country seats, gorillas, etc. It now consists in money." "But what good, if you get rid of her, will it do you? Is it not settled on the lady?" "No! I took very good care of that. When I saw that she was doing all she could to entrap--not me, for for me she did not care, but--a title, I humored her by falling into the snare. I addressed her. We were engaged. Then her governor talked of settlements. I took a high tone, and expressed astonishment and disgust that any lady who was afraid to trust me with her money should be so willing to confide to me the custody of her person. And the negotiations might have come to an end then and there, had not the lady herself intervened and scornfully waived the question of settlements. She had always ruled her father and everyone else around her in every particular, and she ruled in this matter also. The fact is, that she was determined to be a viscountess at any price, and she is one--for a little while!" "What a fool!"