One morning, Marechal entered Madame Desvarennes’s private office, holding a little square piece of paper.  Without speaking a word, he placed it on the desk.  The mistress took it, read what was written upon it in shaky handwriting, and suddenly becoming purple, rose.  The paper bore these simple words: 

“Received from Monsieur Salignon the sum of one hundred thousand francs.  Serge Panine.”

“Who brought this paper?” asked Madame Desvarennes, crushing it between her fingers.

“The waiter who attends the card-room at the club.”

“The waiter?” cried Madame Desvarennes, astonished.

“Oh, he is a sort of banker,” said Marechal.  “These gentlemen apply to him when they run short of money.  The Prince must have found himself in that predicament.  Still he has just received the rents for the property in the Rue de Rivoli.”

“The rents!” grumbled Madame Desvarennes, with an energetic movement.  “The rents!  A drop of water in a river!  You don’t know that he is a man to lose the hundred thousand francs which they claim, in one night.”

The mistress paced up and down the room.  She suddenly came to a standstill.  “If I don’t stop him, the rogue will sell the feather-bed from under my daughter!  But he shall have a little of my mind!  He has provoked me long enough.  Pay it!  I’ll take my money’s worth out of him.”

And in a second, Madame Desvarennes was in the Prince’s room.

Serge, after a delicate breakfast, was smoking and dozing on the smoking-room sofa.  The night had been a heavy one for him.  He had won two hundred and fifty thousand francs from Ibrahim Bey, then he had lost all, besides five thousand louis advanced by the obliging Salignon.  He had told the waiter to come to the Rue Saint-Dominique, and by mistake the man had gone to the office.

The sudden opening of the smoking-room door roused Serge.  He unclosed his eyes and looked very much astonished at seeing Madame Desvarennes appear.  Pale, frowning, and holding the accusing paper in her hand, she angrily inquired: 

“Do you recognize that?” and placed the receipt which he had signed, before him, as he slowly rose.

Serge seized it quickly, and then looking coldly at his mother-in-law, said: 

“How did this paper come into your hands?”

“It has just been brought to my cashier.  A hundred thousand francs!  Faith!  You are going ahead!  Do you know how many bushels of corn must be ground to earn that?”

“I beg your pardon, Madame,” said the Prince, interrupting Madame Desvarennes.  “I don’t suppose you came here to give me a lesson in commercial statistics.  This paper was presented to your cashier by mistake.  I was expecting it, and here is the money ready to pay it.  As you have been good enough to do so, pray refund yourself.”

And taking a bundle of bank-notes from a cabinet, the Prince handed them to the astonished mistress.