“This is a painful, a very painful circumstance,” the Doctor said, looking a little black. “I cannot affect, Anastasie, to be anything but justly wounded. I feel this—I feel it, my wife, acutely.”
“I knew you would,” she said. “But if you had seen his distress! We must make allowances, we must sacrifice our feelings.”
“I trust, my dear, you have never found me averse to sacrifices,” said the Doctor very stiffly.
“And you will let me go and tell him that you have agreed? It will be like your noble nature,” she cried.
So it would, he perceived—it would be like his noble nature! Up jumped his spirits, triumphant at the thought. “Go, darling,” he said nobly, “reassure him. The subject is buried; more—I make an effort, I have accustomed my will to these exertions—and it is forgotten.”
A little after, but still with swollen eyes and looking mortally sheepish, Jean-Marie reappeared and went ostentatiously about his business. He was the only unhappy member of the party that sat down that night to supper. As for the Doctor, he was radiant. He then sang the requiem of the treasure:—
“This has been, on the whole, a most amusing episode,” he said. “We are not a penny the worse—nay, we are immensely gainers. Our philosophy has been exercised; some of the turtle is still left—the most wholesome of delicacies; I have my staff, Anastasie has her new dress, Jean-Marie is the proud possessor of a fashionable képi. Besides, we had a glass of Hermitage last night; the glow still suffuses my memory. I was growing positively niggardly with that Hermitage, positively niggardly. Let me take the hint: we had one bottle to celebrate the appearance of our visionary fortune; let us have a second to console us for its occultation. The third I hereby dedicate to Jean-Marie’s wedding breakfast.”