“Yes,” goes on the girl-Duchess, with a further dulcet flash of those eyes, fed of fire and romance, “you are to have a ship. Here is the king’s order to his Minister of Marine--the shuffler De Sartine. Now there shall be no more shuffling.” She gives Captain Paul Jones the orders. “The ship is the _Duras_, lying at l’Orient.” “The _Duras!_” exclaims Captain Paul Jones. “An ex-Indiaman!--a good ship, too; she mounts forty guns.” Then, as his gaze rests on Doctor Franklin, laying down diplomatic law and fact to Mr. Adams, who listens with a preposterously conceited cock to his head: “What say you, my friend--my best, my dearest friend! Let us re-name the _Duras_ for the good Doctor. Shall we not call it the _Bon Homme Richard_?” The girl-Duchess looks her acquiescence as she would have looked it to any proposal from so near and sweet and dear a quarter. Thus the _Bon Homme Richard_ is born, and the _Duras_ disappears. The Doctor, unconscious of the honor done him, is saying to Madame Helvetius, whose fat arm is thrown across his philosophic shoulder: “With pleasure, madam! It is arranged; I shall dine at your house to-morrow.” The girl-Duchess and Captain Paul Jones hear nothing of these prandial arrangements for the morrow. They are again conversing; and, for all they talk constantly, they say more with their eyes than with their lips. “Lastly,” and here the words of the girl-Duchess grow distinct, “your ship, they tell me, will need refitting. That will take money, my friend; and so I hand you this letter to my banker, Gourlade, instructing him to put ten thousand louis to your credit.” Captain Paul Jones puts the letter of credit aside. “You do not understand!” he says. “De Chaumont has----” “You _must_ take it!” interrupts the girl-Duchess, her eyes beginning to swim. “You shall not put to sea, and risk your life, and the ship not half prepared!” “I shall more easily risk my life a thousand times, than permit you to give me money.” As Captain Paul Jones says this, a resentful red is burning on his brow. Doctor Franklin breaks in from over the way, with: “You should not too much listen to Mr. Lee, sir. I tell you that the French merchants have offered to send Captain Jones to sea as admiral of an entire fleet of privateers, and he refused. Have my word, sir; the last thing he thinks on is money.” The girl-Duchess is gazing reproachfully at Captain Paul Jones. At last she speaks slowly and with a kind of sadness: “I do not give you money--do not offer it. What! money and--you! Never!” Then proudly: “I give my money to the Cause.” After this high note is struck, the flash dies down; the black eyes again go wavering to the floor, while the voice retreats to the old soft whisper. “It is my heart --only my heart that I give to you.” The strident, unmollified tones of Mr. Adams get possession of the field. He is condemning the French press.