“I cannot confess that, monsieur, for it is not true.”
“Yet she is the occasion of your extravagance. Listen.” The judge here drew a bill from the file of papers. “During December you paid her dressmaker, Van Klopen, for two walking dresses, nine hundred francs; one evening dress, seven hundred francs; one domino, trimmed with lace, four hundred francs.”
“I spent this money cheerfully, but nevertheless I was not especially attached to her.”
M. Patrigent shrugged his shoulders.
“You cannot deny the evidence,” said he. “I suppose you will also say that it was not for this girl’s sake you ceased spending your evenings at M. Fauvel’s?”
“I swear that she was not the cause of my ceasing to visit M. Fauvel’s family.”
“Then why did you cease, suddenly, your attentions to a young lady whom you confidently expected to marry, and whose hand you had written to your father to demand for you?”
“I had reasons which I cannot reveal,” answered Prosper with emotion.
The judge breathed freely; at last he had discovered a vulnerable point in the prisoner’s armor.
“Did Mlle. Madeleine banish you?”