“I will wait six months and I will speak to no one. But if at the end of six months I do not receive all, I shall speak, with pain, madame, but inevitably not to your brother but to the world.” “I understand,” she said haughtily. “You will do your worst. Well, never enter my presence again, that is all; and leave it now this moment.” Beaumont smiled with admiration and regret combined. “You are very unwise, madame. If you had not been rude to me I would have accorded you a year. _Mais on chasse de race._” She knew that it was unwise to be so insolent, but she could not have made herself polite to him to save her life. He punished her for having tricked him and flouted her. He was a very rich man and she had offended him. She saw her mistake, but she would not have resisted repeating it if he had come back into the room. Women always bring temper into business, and that is why they fail in it so frequently, for those who do not bring temper bring sentiment, and the one is as ruinous as the other. She had a rapid imagination; she saw before her the crowded court, the witness-box where prevarication was of no use, all her dearest friends with their _lorgnons_ lifted, the bench of the scribbling reporters, the correspondents of the illustrated papers making their sketches furtively and staring at her as she had stared at people in _causes célèbres_; she saw it all, even the portraits of herself which would appear in those woodcuts of artistic journals which would make Helen’s self hideous and Athene’s self grotesque. She saw it all--all the huge headings in the posters and papers, all the staring eyes, all the commiserating censure, all the discreet veiled enjoyment of her acquaintances, all the rancid acrid virulence of the rejoicing Radical press. She imagined that Beaumont would not get his money easily because she knew something about the risks run by those who lend on an imperfect title, as to minors or to women; but she had seen in his regard that he would not mind losing any amount of money if he had his revenge on her in putting her into court. Actually, Beaumont was by no means a revengeful, nor even a hard man, and a very little diplomacy would have made him favorable to her. She hated him more intensely than she had ever hated anyone. For in the first place he had done her a favor, and in the second place she had done him a wrong--a mixture which naturally produces the strongest hatred. She knew that, despite his courtesy, she had nothing more to hope from him; that he would have his money back again, or he would make the transaction public.