"Stop!" Mellin flung one arm up violently, striking the headboard with
his knuckles. "I won't hear a syllable against Madame de Vaurigard!"
Young Cooley regarded him steadily for a moment. "Have you remembered
yet," he said slowly, "how much _you_ lost last night?"

"I only remember that I behaved like an unspeakable boor in the presence
of the divinest creature that ever--"

Cooley disregarded the outburst, and said:

"When we settled, you had a pad of express company checks worth six
hundred dollars. You signed all of 'em and turned 'em over to Sneyd with
three one-hundred-lire bills, which was all the cash you had with you.
Then you gave him your note for twelve thousand francs to be paid within
three days. You made a great deal of fuss about its being a 'debt of
honor.'" He paused. "You hadn't remembered that, had you?"

Mellin had closed his eyes. He lay quite still and made no answer.

"No, I'll bet you hadn't," said Cooley, correctly deducing the fact.
"You're well off, or you wouldn't be at this hotel, and, for all I know,
you may be fixed so you won't mind your loss as much as I do mine; but
it ought to make you kind of charitable toward my suspicions of Madame
de Vaurigard's friends."

The six hundred dollars in express company checks and the three
hundred-lire bills were all the money the unhappy Mellin had in the
world, and until he could return to Cranston and go back to work in the
real-estate office again, he had no prospect of any more. He had not
even his steamer ticket. In the shock of horror and despair he whispered