admirer who is ready to make any sacrifice in order to win your smiles."
He paused a moment, but she did not speak. The colour rose in her face. She quickened her pace a little, but so little as to be scarcely perceptible.
"You will not leave your sick friend at present? Well, whenever you like it, only say the word, and I will make arrangements for your joining me in Paris, where I can promise you as good an establishment and as handsome a turn-out as are to be seen there. You shall have fifty thousand francs a year for your dress, and if you want to buy another picture of Baring's———"
He laughed, and before he finished his sentence, she said, in a voice she tried to make steady and passionless
"I understand this to be an offer of marriage, monsieur? It is most flattering. As you know, you can know absolutely nothing about me. It happens to be the fourth offer I have had within seven months. I have refused them all. I shall never marry a man whom I do not know well."
He was dumfounded. What did the girl mean? She had snatched the last card out of his hand—the card he had certainly not meant to play so soon—and had, so to speak, tossed it in his face.
"Do you realize all that you reject?" he at last stammered out, with a grin. "My hotel is the finest on the Boulevard Haussmann. I have more than two million of francs yearly."
"If you had a million a minute," she again interrupted, and this time quite calmly, "I should not marry you unless I loved you, Monsieur Melchior. To love a person
