"That is to say, I have no vulgar debts--butcher and baker, and so on; but there are two or three things, involving some hundreds, which I shall have to settle some of these days or else----" "Or else what, Austin?" "Cut Paris, Clary, that's all." Clarissa turned pale. Austin began to whistle a popular _cafe-chantant_ air, as he bent over his palette, squeezing little dabs of Naples yellow out of a leaden tube. Some hundreds!--that was a vague phrase, which might mean a great deal of money; it was a phrase which alarmed Clarissa; but she was much more alarmed by the recklessness of her brother's tone. "But if you owe money, you must pay it, Austin," she said; "you can't leave a place owing money." The painter shrugged his shoulders. "It's not an agreeable thing to do," he said, "but it has been done. Of the two, it's pleasanter than staying in a place where you owe money." "Of course I shall do all I can to help you, dear," said his sister. "There will be a hundred and twenty-five pounds due to me at Christmas, and I'll give you the hundred." "You're a first-rate girl, Clary, but I think that fellow Granger might give you more pin-money. Five hundred a year is a beggarly pittance for a man of his means." "It is more than I fancied I could ever want; and Daniel allows papa five hundred a year, you know Austin." "Humph! that makes a thousand--no great things for a millionaire. A pretty girl, married to a man of that stamp, ought to have unlimited command of money," replied her brother. "It's the only compensation," he said to himself afterwards. "I don't like to hear you say these things, Austin. My husband is very kind to me. I'm afraid I'm not half as grateful as I ought to be." "Gratitude be----!" He did not finish the ejaculation. "Gratitude from a Lovel of twenty to a Granger of fifty! My dear Clary, that's too good a joke! The man is well enough--better than I expected to find him: but such a girl as you is a prize for which such a man could not pay too highly." It was rarely they had the opportunity for so long a conversation as this; and Austin was by no means sorry that it was so. He had very pressing need of all the money his sister could give him; but he did not care to enter into explanations about the state of his affairs. * * * * * CHAPTER XXXV. SISTERS-IN-LAW. Clarissa did not forget the existence of the poor little wife in the Rue du Chevalier Bayard; and on the very first afternoon which she had to herself, Mr. Granger having gone to see some great cattle-fair a few miles from Paris, and Miss Granger being afflicted with a headache, she took courage to order her coachman to drive straight to the house where her brother lived. "It is much better than making a mystery of it," she thought. "The man will think that I have come to see a milliner or some one of that kind."