"He shoots himself," said Monsieur Leroy, completing the sentence.
"That would not help us. Besides, I should be very sorry if anything happened to Guido."
"Of course!" cried Monsieur Leroy. "Not for worlds! But nothing need happen to him. You have only to persuade him that the sole way to save his honour is to marry an heiress, and he will marry at once, as a matter of conscience. Unless something is done to move him, he will not."
"But he is in love with the girl!"
"Enough to occupy him and amuse him. That is all. By-the-bye, where are those receipts?"
"In the small strong-box, in the lower drawer of the writing table."
Monsieur Leroy found the papers, and transferred them to his pocket-book, not yet sure how he could best turn them to account, but quite certain that their proper use would reveal itself to him before long.
"And besides," he concluded, "we can always make him sell the Andrea del Sarto and the Raphael. Baumgarten thinks they are worth a good sum. You know that he buys for the Berlin gallery, and the British Museum people think everything of his opinion."
In this way the Princess and her favourite disposed of Guido and his property; but he would not have been much surprised if he could have heard their conversation. They were only saying what he had expected of them as far back as the day when he had talked with Lamberti in the garden of the Arcadians.