"You will do very right; no one that has the means should stay in Paris
after June. Dieu! What a beautiful handkerchief! Surely--surely--this is
not your work, mademoiselle?"

Adrienne simply answered in the affirmative, and then the
commissionaire's admiration was redoubled. Glancing her eye round the
room, as if to ascertain the probabilities, the woman inquired if the
handkerchief was ordered. Adrienne blushed, but shaking off the
transient feeling of shame, she stated that it was for sale.

"I know a lady who would buy this--a marchande de mode, a friend of
mine, who gives the highest prices that are ever paid for such articles--
for to tell you the truth certain Russian princesses employ her in all these
little matters. Have you thought of your price, mademoiselle?"

Adrienne's bloom had actually returned, with this unexpected gleam of
hope, for the affair of disposing of me had always appeared awful in her
imagination. She owned the truth frankly, and said that she had not
made herself acquainted with the prices of such things, except as she
had understood what affluent ladies paid for them.

"Ah! that is a different matter," said Desiree, coldly. "These ladies pay
far more than a thing is worth. Now you paid ten francs for the
handkerchief itself."

"Twenty-eight," answered Adrienne, trembling.

"Twenty-eight! mademoiselle, they deceived you shamefully. Ten would
have been dear in the present absence of strangers from Paris. No, call