"Madam," he said, addressing the Princess, "I have been badly treated. There is no one who would not admit that. I have been deceived—a man less kind than I might say robbed. No matter. I forget it all. I forget my disappointment, I forget that this young lady whom you offer me for a wife has a dot so pitifully small that it counts for nothing. I take her. I accept her. Jeanne," he added, moving towards her, "you hear? It is because I love you so very, very much."
Jeanne shrank back in her chair.
"You mean," she cried, "that you are willing to take me now that you know everything, now that you know I have so little money? You mean that you want to marry me still?"
The Count assented graciously. Never in the course of his whole life, had he admired himself so much.
"I forget everything," he declared, with a little wave of the hand, "except that I love you, and that you are the one woman in the world whom I wish to make the Comtesse de Brensault. Mademoiselle permits me?"
He stooped and raised her cold hand to his lips. Jeanne looked at him with the fascinated despair of some stricken animal. The Princess rose to her feet. It was wonderful, this—a triumph beyond all thought.
"Jeanne, my child," she said, "you are the most fortunate girl I know, to have inspired a devotion so great. Count," she added, "you are wonderful. You deserve all the happiness which I am sure will come to you."
The Count looked as though he were perfectly convinced of it. All the same he whispered in her ear a moment later—
"You must pay me back that three thousand pounds!"
[a/]