Oh, what a picture was Fifi, parading up and down before the mirror, and saying to herself:
“I think this will finish him.”
The amount, for the costume, cloak, hat and fan was nearly two thousand francs. Fifi regretted it was not more.
“And now,” she said, “some negligées, with rich effects; you understand.”
Fifi’s taste being pretty well understood in the establishment by this time, some negligées were produced, in which Fifi arrayed herself and looked like a parroquet. Then came evening gowns. There was one in particular which Fifi thought might be the death of the Bourcets. It was a short, scant, diaphanous Greek costume, which was so very Greek that it could only have been worn with propriety in the days of the nymphs, the fauns and the dryads.
“This, without a petticoat, I am sure, will rid me of Louis Bourcet,” thought Fifi, “but I must never let Cartouche see it, or he will kill me.”
Fifi, being fatigued with her exertions—for her purchases were calculated to fatigue the eye as well as the mind, ordered the articles selected to be sent that day to Madame Bourcet’s.
“And the bill, Mademoiselle?” asked the manager in a dulcet voice.
“Make it out,” replied Fifi debonairly, “and I will pay it now.”
There was a pause for the manager and the clerks to recover their breath, while Fifi sat quite serene. It did not take a minute for the bill to be made out, however,—four thousand, nine hundred and forty-four francs, twenty-five centimes. Fifi was cruelly disappointed; she had reckoned on getting rid of more of her money. But still this was a beginning, so she handed over five notes of a thousand francs each, and gravely counted her change: fifty-five francs, seventy-five centimes.