"He is trying to think how he will get rid of me," thought Aurora; "he is making up some pretext with which to dismiss me, and when the tenth of March comes we shall be put into the street."
M. Grandissime extended the letter toward her, but she did not lift her hands.
"I beg to assure you, madame, I could never have permitted this notice to reach you from my office; I am not the Honoré Grandissime for whom this is signed."
Aurora smiled in a way to signify clearly that that was just the subterfuge she had been anticipating. Had she been at home she would have thrown herself, face downward, upon the bed; but she only smiled meditatively upward at the picture of an East Indian harbor and made an unnecessary rearrangement of her handkerchief under her folded hands.
"There are, you know,"--began Honoré, with a smile which changed the meaning to "You know very well there are"--"two Honoré Grandissimes. This one who sent you this letter is a man of color--"
"Oh!" exclaimed Aurora, with a sudden malicious sparkle.
"If you will entrust this paper to me," said Honoré, quietly, "I will see him and do now engage that you shall have no further trouble about it. Of course, I do not mean that I will pay it, myself; I dare not offer to take such a liberty."
Then he felt that a warm impulse had carried him a step too far.
Aurora rose up with a refusal as firm as it was silent. She neither smiled nor scintillated now, but wore an expression of amiable practicality as she presently said, receiving back the rent-notice as she spoke:
"I thank you, sir, but it might seem strange to him to find his notice in the hands of a person who can claim no interest in the matter. I shall have to attend to it myself."