“Pray understand, Léontine, that I reserve the right to tell your husband all the circumstances of this affair if I choose to. I am not intimidated by your threat to tell my sister some cock-and-bull story about me.”
Léontine reflected a moment, her pretty head on her hand.
“Do you know, dear Papa Bouchard,” she said, after a while, “that you and I are engaged in what the Americans call a game of bluff?”
“Don’t know anything about the Americans. Don’t know what bluff is.”
“Oh, yes, you do—you know the thing, although you may not recognize the name. But you are a good soul, Papa Bouchard, and Victor and I do bother you a good deal; but only say no more of this matter—about Putzki and Louise—and don’t tell Victor, and I’ll not tell Aunt Céleste, and everything will come perfectly right.”
As Léontine spoke she unclasped her necklace, kissed it, and with a gesture of scorn put on the real necklace, saying to herself: “I never thought I should come to this.”
And then came a loud rat-tat at the door, and in walked Captain de Meneval again. He carried Monsieur Bouchard’s impedimenta, with which he had so unceremoniously made off. Both he and Léontine looked thoroughly disconcerted at meeting each other. De Meneval thought she had gone away. Léontine blushed guiltily, and had barely enough presence of mind to cover up the necklace lying on the table with Papa Bouchard’s scientific journal.
“Ah, good-evening, Papa Bouchard!” cried this arch hypocrite of an artillery captain, as if he had not seen Monsieur Bouchard half an hour before. “I came to return your umbrella and coat. Thanks very much for lending them to me in an emergency. Why, little girl, I thought you were on your way to the opera?”
“I am just going,” answered Léontine, moving toward the door.
“One moment!” cried Papa Bouchard, waving his arm authoritatively. These two scapegraces had used him for their own purposes that night, had made game of him, and had threatened to discover a mare’s nest to Mademoiselle Bouchard and had got seven thousand francs out of him in cold cash. Now, however, he would take his revenge. “Wait,” he said to Léontine, who returned reluctantly to her former place.