"What then?"

"It's not easy to express, but----"

"But you exaggerate both the service and the gratitude you ought to feel.
I think I know why you refuse. You're ashamed to take it as a gift,
aren't you."

"Yes, I am."

"Well, I'm not going to make you a gift. Borrow twelve hundred livres
from me. For how long do you want the money?"

"I really don't know how soon I can repay you."

"Let's say a year, and reckon the interest. Sit down there, you baby,
and write out a promissory note."

Maitre Quennebert made some further show of resistance, but at last
yielded to the widow's importunity. It is needless to say that the whole
thing was a comedy on his part, except that he really needed the money.
But he did not need it to replace a sum of which a faithless friend had
robbed him, but to satisfy his own creditors, who, out of all patience
with him, were threatening to sue him, and his only reason for seeking
out Madame de Rapally was to take advantage of her generous disposition
towards himself. His feigned delicacy was intended to induce her to
insist so urgently, that in accepting he should not fall too much in her
esteem, but should seem to yield to force. And his plan met with
complete success, for at the end of the transaction he stood higher than