"Come!" he said; and, supporting her across the room, whispered madly in her ear: "Pretend! For God's sake, pretend!"
Plancine's swimming eyes looked down, looked upon a litter of perished rags of paper, and, lying in the midst of the rubbish, an ancient stained and cockled miniature of a powdered Louis Seize coquette.
This was all. This was the treasure the old crazed vanity had thought sufficient to build her nephew his fortune.
The diamonds! Probably these had long before been sacrificed to the armies ineffectively manoeuvring for the destruction of Monsieur "Veto's" enemies.
Plancine lifted her head. Thereafter George never ceased to recall with a glad pride the nobility that had shone in her eyes.
"My papa!" she cried softly, going swiftly to the bed; "they are beautiful as the stars that glittered over the old untroubled France!"
De Jussac sprang up on his pillow.
"The guillotine!" he cried. "The beams break into flowers! The axe is a shaft of light!"
And so the glowing blade descended.