"Twenty-seven seventy-five," she said severely.
"Can one make it thirty, mignonne?"
"Thirty! Tell me, then, how market bills are to be met when one is owed these thirties?"
"Dear angel, Providence has decided that you shall deal with such problems."
"Well, well, no more, not a centime beyond the thirty!"
"Monstrous, yet all heart!" murmured Felix. He struck an attitude, and sang with exquisite feeling the opening bars of the Jewel Song from "Faust." As applied to the earthly tabernacle of madame's generous soul, the effect of that impassioned address was ludicrous. But Felix recked little of that. He threw the hundred-franc note on the counter.
"There, ma petite, be rewarded for your trust," he cried. "Now give me the railway timetable; for I have far to go ere I return, when you and I shall crack a bottle of Clos Vosgeot with our dinner."
Madame, who had not betrayed the least embarrassment when she and her café were apostrophized in Gounod's impassioned strains, was utterly bewildered by Poluski's wealth. Not once in many years had he owned so much at one time, since he always drew small sums on account of his pictures and kept himself going hand-to-mouth fashion. But here was Felix intent on the timetable and sweeping seventy-two francs twenty-five centimes of change into his pocket without troubling to count a coin.
"You have found a mad Englishman, I suppose?" tittered madame.