“Fifty dollars,” in a low voice, eagerly. Bagshot meditated. “H’m, fifty dollars! Two hundred and fifty francs, or thereabouts. Beggarly!” “A hundred, then.” Bagshot got to his feet, lighting a cigarette. “Want to have a pretty story against a woman, and to smutch a man, do you? Well, I’m hard up; I don’t mind gossip among ourselves; but sell the stuff to you--I’ll see you damned first!” This was said sufficiently loud; and after that, Meyerbeer could not ask Fancourt, so he departed with Gaston, who courteously dismissed him, to his astonishment and regret, for he had determined to visit the menagerie with his quarry. Gaston went to his apartments, and cheerily summoned Jacques. “Now, little man, for a holiday! The menagerie: lions, leopards, and a grand dompteuse; and afterwards dinner with me at the Cafe Blanche. I want a blow-out of lions and that sort. I’d like to be a lion-tamer myself for a month, or as long as might be.” He caught Jacques by the shoulders--he had not done so since that memorable day at Ridley Court. “See, Jacques, we’ll do this every year. Six months in England, and three months on the Continent,--in your France, if you like,--and three months in the out-of-the-wayest place, where there’ll be big game. Hidalgos for six months, Goths for the rest.” A half-hour later they were in the menagerie. They sat near the doors where the performers entered. For a long time they watched the performance with delight, clapping and calling bravo like boys. Presently the famous dompteuse entered,--Mademoiselle Victorine,--passing just below Gaston. He looked down, interested, at the supple, lithe creature making for the cages of lions in the amphitheatre. The figure struck him as familiar. Presently the girl turned, throwing a glance round the theatre. He caught the dash of the dark, piercing eyes, the luminous look, the face unpainted--in its own natural colour: neither hot health nor paleness, but a thing to bear the light of day. “Andree the gipsy!” he exclaimed in a low tone. In less than two years this! Here was fame. A wanderer, an Ishmael then, her handful of household goods and her father in the grasp of the Law: to-day, Mademoiselle Victorine, queen of animal-tamers! And her name associated with the Comte Ploare! With the Comte Ploare? Had it come to that? He remembered the look in her face when he bade her good-bye. Impossible! Then, immediately he laughed. Why impossible? And why should he bother his head about it? People of this sort: Mademoiselle Cerise, Madame Juliette, Mademoiselle Victorine--what were they to him, or to themselves? There flashed through his brain three pictures: when he stood by the bedside of the old dying Esquimaux in Labrador, and took a girl’s hand in his; when among the flowers at Peppingham he heard Delia say: “Oh, Gaston! Gaston!” and Alice’s face at midnight in the moonlit window at Ridley Court.