an apprehensive glance towards Yvonne, whose dark head was lowered studiously above her ledger, but who suggested, by a certain strained attentiveness of posture, that she was missing none of the conversation.
“Come,” the Countess whispered feverishly again, pulling him towards the stairway as she spoke. “You come with me, my boy. I want to talk to you alone.”
They went upstairs to a parlour on the first floor, deserted, closed, a little stale with its sumptuous bordello furnishings of gilt and crimson plush. There the Countess turned to him and said directly:
“See here, my boy. What you want to do is out of the question. It will be impossible for you to stay here for four or five weeks! Impossible!” she cried, twisting her bony little hands with growing agitation. “It cannot be done!”
He looked surprised, a little pained.
“Why?” he said.
“Because,” she said, and now at last her tone was simple and direct in its quiet assertion, “the Vatels will not keep you here—they will not give you credit for so long a time—”
“And you?” he said quietly.
“My friend,” the old woman answered simply, “I have not got it.” She raised her bony little shoulders in a shrug. “At the present moment I have nothing—not a sou! I get a little money from America on the first and fifteenth of each month—if I had it, I would give it to you, but I have nothing now. And what I get would not be nearly enough to pay your expenses here for five weeks. It cannot be done.”
For the first time since his return he felt respect and sympathy for her; in face of the plain and honest directness of her confession all of his former humour of cynical mockery had vanished. He said:
“In that case it cannot be done. You are right. I must try to get help elsewhere.”
“You have friends in Paris, haven’t you? You know people there—Americans?”
“Yes—I think I could get help from someone if I were in Paris.”
“Then I shall try to help you to get there,” she said quickly. “How much will you need?”
“I think the third-class fare from here is about seventeen francs,” he said.
“And you have—how much? Nine sixty-five?” She calculated swiftly,
