One day Helen said to me, “I made a silly speech last evening.  I was dancing with M. Vergniaud, and we were talking of that charming Madame de Launay.  I said, ’I should think she might be happy, having an elegant house in Paris, a chateau in the country, and such a handsome husband so devoted to her.’  And he rejoined instantly, very low, ’My dear Miss St. Clair, can I not give you all this?’ It was not fair to take advantage of me in that way.”

“What did you say?”

“Oh, I laughed it off.  I did not think he was in earnest, but he spoke to me again before he went away.”

That afternoon Madame Le Fort came into my room with the look of one who has something important to communicate.  “I have been wishing to see you,” she said.  “M.  Vergniaud has taken me into his confidence.  He has formed a serious attachment to Miss St. Clair, and wishes to make her his wife.  It is a splendid alliance,” she continued, warming with her theme:  “if he had asked for my daughter I would give her to him blindfold.  He belongs to one of our old families.  You should see his house on the Avenue de Montaigne.  Have you never seen him driving with his superb horses in the Bois de Boulogne?  He has an estate with a fine old chateau in Touraine, a family inheritance.  His character and habits are unexceptionable too,” she added by way of parenthesis.  “It is not often that you find all that in a man of twenty-six.  So handsome besides!”

“True,” said I, “but you forget Mr. Denham.”

“On the contrary, I remember him too well to conceive the possibility of his being a rival to Rene Vergniaud.”

“But did you mention him to M. Vergniaud?”

“Yes, and he was greatly disturbed at first, but when I told him that he had no expectation of marrying for two or three years to come, he laughed and said it was of no importance.  M. Vergniaud would like to be married in a few weeks, as is the custom with us, but I suppose it will take longer to adjust the preliminaries on account of her parents being across the Atlantic.  What dowry has my little jewel?” (The inevitable question, always put with as much simplicity and directness as if one were asking the time of day.)

“I do not know,” I replied.  “It is so contrary to all our notions.  I do not think there is a man in America who in asking a father for the hand of his daughter would inquire how much money he was to have with her.  It would be considered an insult.”

“Perhaps Mr. St. Clair would prefer to settle an annuity on his daughter.  Is that the way the thing is managed in your country?”

“It is not managed at all.  A man gives his daughter what he likes, or he gives her nothing but her bridal outfit.  It is never a condition of the marriage.”

“How strange all that is!  One can hardly believe it in France.  We set by a sum of money for Clarice’s dowry almost as soon as she was born, and it would be a hard necessity that could compel us to diminish it by a single sou.  If you would like it, in a couple of days I can give you an exact inventory of all M. Vergniaud’s property and possessions.  I could guarantee that it will not vary twenty napoleons from the fact.  We do everything so systematically here.”