Noel was unable this time to restrain a gesture of impatience, which Juliette perceived plainly enough, to her great delight.
“Would that be sufficient?” continued she. “Shall I call Charlotte, so that she may admire this superb bracelet, this monument of your generosity? Shall I have the concierge up, and call the cook to tell them how happy I am to possess such a magnificent lover.”
The advocate shrugged his shoulders like a philosopher, incapable of noticing a child’s banter. “What is the use of these insulting jests?” said he. “If you have any real complaint against me, better to say so simply and seriously.”
“Very well,” said Juliette, “let us be serious. And, that being so, I will tell you it would have been better to have forgotten the bracelet, and to have brought me last night or this morning the eight thousand francs I wanted.”
“I could not come.”
“You should have sent them; messengers are still to be found at the street-corners.”
“If I neither brought nor sent them, my dear Juliette, it was because I did not have them. I had trouble enough in getting them promised me for to-morrow. If I have the sum this evening, I owe it to a chance upon which I could not have counted an hour ago; but by which I profited, at the risk of compromising myself.”
“Poor man!” said Juliette, with an ironical touch of pity in her voice. “Do you dare to tell me you have had difficulty in obtaining ten thousand francs,—you?”
“Yes,—I!”
The young woman looked at her lover, and burst into a fit of laughter. “You are really superb when you act the poor young man!” said she.