“Alas!” she sighed, “La Verberie cannot be saved by forty thousand francs; the principal and interest of the debt amount to sixty thousand.”

“Oh, either forty or sixty thousand is nothing worth speaking of.”

“Four thousand francs is not enough to support a lady respectably,” she said after a pause.  “Everything is so dear in this section of the country!  But with six thousand francs—­yes, six thousand francs would make me happy!”

The young man thought that her demands were becoming excessive, but with the generosity of an ardent lover he said: 

“The son-in-law of whom we are speaking cannot be very devoted to Mlle. Valentine, if the paltry sum of two thousand francs were objected to for an instant.”

“You promise too much!” muttered the countess.

“The imaginary son-in-law,” she finally added, “must be an honorable man who will fulfil his promises.  I have my daughter’s happiness too much at heart to give her to a man who did not produce—­what do you call them?—­securities, guarantees.”

“Decidedly,” thought Fauvel with mortification, “we are making a bargain and sale.”

Then he said aloud: 

“Of course, your son-in-law would bind himself in the marriage contract to—­”

“Never! monsieur, never!  Put such an agreement in the marriage contract!  Think of the impropriety of the thing!  What would the world say?”

“Permit me, madame, to suggest that your pension should be mentioned as the interest of a sum acknowledged to have been received from you.”

“Well, that might do very well; that is very proper.”

The countess insisted upon taking Andre home in her carriage.  During the drive, no definite plan was agreed upon between them; but they understood each other so well, that, when the countess set the young engineer down at his own door, she invited him to dinner the next day, and held out her skinny hand which Andre kissed with devotion, as he thought of the rosy fingers of Valentine.

When Mme. de la Verberie returned home, the servants were dumb with astonishment at her good-humor:  they had not seen her in this happy frame of mind for years.

And her day’s work was of a nature to elevate her spirits:  she had been unexpectedly raised from poverty to affluence.  She, who boasted of such proud sentiments, never stopped to think of the infamy of the transaction in which she had been engaged:  it seemed quite right in her selfish eyes.

“A pension of six thousand francs!” she thought, “and a thousand crowns from the estate, that makes nine thousand francs a year!  My daughter will live in Paris after she is married, and I can spend the winters with my dear children without expense.”

At this price, she would have sold, not only one, but three daughters, if she had possessed them.

But suddenly her blood ran cold at a sudden thought, which crossed her mind.