"Never mind its value. I am a collector of such trifles, and want this specimen particularly."
"He won it in battle. It would be cruel—abominable—to take it. You cannot have it."
"Mademoiselle Adèle, your scruples do you credit; but, after all, are mushroom-pickers the people to talk about scruples? Here you are planning what is, in plain English, the robbery of your employer, so why stick at a trifle like that?"
"Écoutez, Mr. Jones. You are only a burglar, so your opinion is no matter, but I shall tell you why I do this thing. I come to your country to get riches. I am clever, but there are no riches, even for clever people, in my own valley of the Durance. First I was maid to one lady with a title so long," and she extended her arms to their full width. "I was 'appy. Then I met an aëronaut—you understand, one who makes ascensions in a balloon—who talked my language like myself. He persuades me to leave my place and marry him. I was idiot to do so. Then one day he goes up in his balloon at—what you call it?—Birmingham, for a brief voyage. But he disappears in the clouds. He sends me postcard from Ostend to tell me that he is landed all-right. Then I never found him again."
She paused dramatically. Maxwell-Pitt felt that something was demanded of him, and hastened to murmur some words of sympathy, but she did not listen.
"Then I took a place again as lady's maid," she went on. "There was trouble over some jewels. They blamed me. Bah! I was innocent. But they say 'No,' and 'You go at once,' and 'No character.' So I am alone in England, with no money and mon mari gone. I come here, and I think this lady so kind to take me without a character written. Then I find the ones who have the characters written will not stay with her—not one month—so that is why she takes me. She is black slave-driver, and her temper—mon Dieu, it is dis-graceful! It is a horrible time here. Then there is Alphonse, who is waiter at the Élysée Palace, who wants me to marry him and assist him to found a restaurant, and I must continually tell him 'Wait.'
"When I see you, Mr. Jones, I see my way to escape from it all. It came at one jump—the thought, 'I will help him, and he will give me fifty gold sovereigns, and I shall go to Belgium at once. My 'usband is either dead, or I find him and tell him what I think of him, and get a divorce, and then return and marry the good Alphonse, who adores me.' So you see that I am no common thief. Bah! As for madame's jewellery, ça ne fait rien. She is rich. I shall be glad to have annoyed her. But at once I tell you, you shall not have the Victoria Medal. That is not to be. Captain Richards is the only man in this miserable country who has been kind to me. And he is a brave soldier. I shall not permit that you annoy him."
"I promise to return it."