Jenny’s large eyes continued to interrogate him.

“Why,” he continued, with lofty carelessness, “life, you know, is like a bunch of grapes, which one either eats gradually, piece by piece, or squeezes into a glass to be tossed off at a gulp.  I’ve chosen the latter way.  My grape was four million francs; they are drunk up to the dregs.  I don’t regret them, I’ve had a jolly life for my money.  But now I can flatter myself that I am as much of a beggar as any beggar in France.  Everything at my house is in the bailiff’s hands—­I am without a domicile, without a penny.”

He spoke with increasing animation as the multitude of diverse thoughts passed each other tumultuously in his brain.  And he was not playing a part.  He was speaking in all good faith.

“But—­then—­” stammered Jenny.

“What?  Are you free?  Just so—­”

She hardly knew whether to rejoice or mourn.

“Yes,” he continued, “I give you back your liberty.”

Jenny made a gesture which Hector misunderstood.

“Oh! be quiet,” he added quickly, “I sha’n’t leave you thus; I would not desert you in a state of need.  This furniture is yours, and I have provided for you besides.  Here in my pocket are five hundred napoleons; it is my all; I have brought it to give to you.”

He passed the money over to her on a plate, laughingly, imitating the restaurant waiters.  She pushed it back with a shudder.

“Oh, well,” said he, “that’s a good sign, my dear; very good, very good.  I’ve always thought and said that you were a good girl—­in fact, too good; you needed correcting.”

She did, indeed, have a good heart; for instead of taking Hector’s bank-notes and turning him out of doors, she tried to comfort and console him.  Since he had confessed to her that he was penniless, she ceased to hate him, and even commenced to love him.  Hector, homeless, was no longer the dreaded man who paid to be master, the millionnaire who, by a caprice, had raised her from the gutter.  He was no longer the execrated tyrant.  Ruined, he descended from his pedestal, he became a man like others, to be preferred to others, as a handsome and gallant youth.  Then Jenny mistook the last artifice of a discarded vanity for a generous impulse of the heart, and was deeply touched by this splendid last gift.

“You are not as poor as you say,” she said, “for you still have so large a sum.”

“But, dear child, I have several times given as much for diamonds which you envied.”

She reflected a moment, then as if an idea had struck her, exclaimed: 

“That’s true enough; but I can spend, oh, a great deal less, and yet be just as happy.  Once, before I knew you, when I was young (she was now nineteen), ten thousand francs seemed to me to be one of those fabulous sums which were talked about, but which few men ever saw in one pile, and fewer still held in their hands.”