And on the previous day an elderly person with two wooden legs, who had once been a popular actress in vaudeville, and who kept the newspaper-kiosk in front of Siraudin’s at the angle of the Boulevard des Capucines and the Rue de la Paix, had made a similar proposal.
“Monseigneur,” she had said, as he gave her a small gratuity in passing, “deign to permit a word?” She added, as Monseigneur signified permission: “See you, they tell me you are uncommonly tight for money; do not ask who they are—everybody knows it. And I am not so poor but that I have three billets of a thousand francs laid away as a nest-egg. Say the word, and I will lend you them—you shall pay me back with interest when you are Emperor of France.”
Kate Harvey and the newspaper-seller were more honest than the rest of them....
Kate had said:
“Look here, old pal, here are fifty thousand shiners it took me a heap of trouble to rake together. You shall have ’em to play with, only give me I.O.U.’s for a hundred and forty thou. And a title by-and-by, when you are Emperor,—something to make the proper folks at home twiddle their thumbs and stare.”
That was plain speaking. He understood that kind of bargaining. People who asked nothing wanted most in the long run.
“Undoubtedly,” he now replied to Madame de Roux, “friendship like yours seeks no return of favors. But the heart is relieved of its burden of gratitude in the lavish bestowal of these....” He added: “Not that obligations to you weigh heavily.... Yes, I have eaten the bread of your charity. That sum of twenty thousand francs—sent to me at the commencement of the insurrection—the twenty-five thousand forwarded to me here on the evening of yesterday—anonymously—like other sums that I have received from the same source.... Did you think I should not guess whose hand it was that traced the words, ‘From a Lover of the Violet, who longs to see the flower take root again upon the soil of France’?”
She faltered, careful that the denial should appear hesitating and labored:
“Monseigneur, you mistake.... I wrote nothing.... The money you speak of did not come from me!”
He shook his lank-haired head, and said in a nasal murmur: