Margot rose to her feet.
“I think, Monsieur,” she said, “that I also could not take money. If it could be from anyone it would be from you, but to-day I called again at the theatre at which I sang before his illness, and they have kindly said they will take me on again; so you see I shall not be long in want of anything. I will not thank you then, Monsieur, but to-morrow I shall expect you.” And Margot held out both her hands to Jacques Cartier.
“Personally,” he said, as he took them, “in spite of all you’ve been telling me, Mademoiselle, I think that Monsieur Jean is a very lucky fellow!”
“Oh, Monsieur!” said Margot, with some emphasis; and she shook her head.
“Then I think he’s uncommonly bête,” said Cartier, holding the door open for her.
“No indeed, Monsieur,” exclaimed Margot, and more emphatically still.
“Well, then,” said Cartier over the banisters, as she stepped past him down the stairs, “I think the world’s a deuced clumsy place, Mademoiselle,” and this time Margot did not contradict him.
CHAPTER XIX
THE Toriallis had a handsome new house in the wide Boulevard Malesherbes; it was, as Madame often explained, “only a business residence.”
This, however, had not prevented her from doing full justice to her consummate taste and to the large sums of money which her husband’s professional successes had put at her disposal.