"No, no! My poor little pin that you despise so—I can see it in your face. It shall go into the box where I keep memorials of the dead."
She rose from her seat and pulled down her veil. Pepe was pressing in his endeavours to be attentive, and to mollify her wrath. At last, when she had almost reached the door, she suddenly turned about and drew out of her muff a neat little jewel-box, which she gave to her lover, looking him straight in the face meanwhile.
The young man's eyes opened, resting on the box with an expression of delight; then they met those of his mistress. They gazed at each other for a minute, she with a look of mischievous triumph, he with gratitude and suppressed joy.
"I always said so! No one in the world knows what love means, but you, my darling. Come here; let me thank you, let me worship you on my knees."
He dragged her to the sofa, made her sit down, and falling on his knees, kissed her gloved hands with rapture.
"Mercy, what madness!" cried the lady quite bewildered. "What a whirlwind round a trifle."
"It is not for the money, my darling, not for the money; but because you have such an original way of doing things. Because you are such a trump, such an angel!" He clasped her knees, he grovelled before her, and kissed her feet—or, to be exact, her boots.
"What an abject thing you are, Pepe!" said she, laughing.
"I don't care what you call me; I am yours, your slave till death. I owe you not only happiness, but honour. You cannot think what I have gone through these two days, over that cursed debt!" he said, in a voice of genuine emotion.
"And will you go and gamble any more, eh? Gamble, and lose it all, you wretch," said she, tumbling his hair and spoiling the beautiful parting down the middle.