Gustave had listened very attentively, and without interruption, until
now; when he looked up, and said with his customary sneer, "Did your
Monsieur, _fort bel homme_, you say, inform you of the value of the
advice, rather of the commands, you were implicitly to obey?"

"Yes," answered Julie, "not then, but later. Let me go on. We arrived
at M. N-----'s, an elderly grave man. He said that all he knew was that
he held the money in trust for the Monsieur with me, to be given to him,
with the accumulations of interest, on the death of the lady who had
deposited it. If that Monsieur had instructions how to dispose of the
money, they were not known to him. All he had to do was to transfer it
absolutely to him on the proper certificate of the lady's death. So you
see, Gustave, that the Monsieur could have kept all from me if he had
liked."

"Your Monsieur is very generous. Perhaps you will now tell me his name."

"No; he forbids me to do it yet."

"And he took this apartment for you, and gave you money to buy that smart
dress and these furs. Bah! _mon enfant_, why try to deceive me? Do I
not know my Paris? A _fort bel homme_ does not make himself guardian to
a _fort belle fine_ so young and fair as Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin
without certain considerations which shall be nameless, like himself."

Julie's eyes flashed. "Ah, Gustave! ah, Monsieur!" she said, half
angrily, half plaintively, "I see that my guardian knew you better than
I did. Never mind; I will not reproach. Thou halt the right to despise
me."