“‘Observe, Madame, that in the first instance of all, you have rejected the one hundred louis with indignation, then put them aside with complaisance, while in the last case it is without your knowledge that they remained with you. Here are three narrations of the same act, what is the true version I beg you?’
“‘I have said to you, Monsieur, that I shall hold to my verification,’ etc., etc., etc.”
Then comes the question of the fifteen louis: “I begged her to be so good as to tell us clearly and without equivocation whether she had not required fifteen louis of Le-Jay for the secretary, and if she had not put them in the bureau when Le-Jay gave her the money.
“‘I replied clearly and without equivocation that Le-Jay never spoke to me of the fifteen louis, neither did he give them to me.’
“‘Observe, Madame, that there would be more merit in saying, ‘I refused them,’ than in maintaining that you know nothing about them.’
“‘I maintain, Monsieur, that no one ever spoke to me of them. Would there have been any sense of offering fifteen louis to a woman of my quality, after having refused a hundred the day before?’
“‘The day before what, Madame?’
“‘Eh, monsieur, the day before the day——’ (she stopped suddenly and bit her lip.)
“‘The day before the day,’ I said to her, ‘on which no one ever spoke to you about the fifteen louis, n’est-ce-pas?’
“‘Stop this,’ she said, rising furious to her feet, ‘or I will give you a box on the ears. I’ve had enough of those fifteen louis! With all your despicable little tournures de phrases you try to confuse me and make me blunder, but I tell you in truth that I shall not answer you another word.’