‘This looks as if he were serious, doesn’t it?’ asked La Chicot.
The question was addressed to Mr. Desrolles. The two were standing side by side in the wintry dusk, in front of one of the windows that looked into Cibber Street, contemplating the contents of a jewel-case, which La Chicot held open.
Embedded in the white velvet lining there lay a collet necklace of diamonds, each stone as big as a prize pea; such a necklace as Desrolles could not remember to have seen, even in the jewellers’ windows, before which he had sometimes paused out of sheer idleness, to contemplate such finery.
‘Serious!’ he echoed. ‘I told you from the first that Joseph Lemuel was a prince.’
‘You don’t suppose I am going to keep it?’ said La Chicot.
‘I don’t suppose you, or any other woman, would send it back, if it were a free gift,’ answered Desrolles.
‘It is not a free gift. It is to be mine if I consent to run away from my husband and live in Paris as Mr. Lemuel’s mistress. I am to have a villa at Passy, and fifteen hundred a year.’
‘Princely!’ exclaimed Desrolles.
‘And I am to leave Jack free to live his own life. Don’t you think he would be glad?’
There was something almost tigerish in the look which emphasised this question.