“The Princess,” she remarked, “must have forgotten to tell you.  This great fortune that all the world has spoken of, and that seems to have made me so famous, has been all the time something of a myth.  It has existed only in the imaginations of my kind friends.  A few days ago my stepmother here told me of this.  I wrote at once to Monsieur Laplanche, my trustee.  She would not let me send the letter.  When I was at Salthouse, however, I wrote again, and this time I had a reply.  It is here.  There is a statement,” she continued, “which covers many pages, and which shows exactly how my father’s fortune was exaggerated, how securities have dwindled, and how my stepmother’s insisting upon a very large allowance during my school-days, has eaten up so much of the residue.  There is left to me, it appears, a sum of fourteen thousand pounds.  That is a very small fortune, is it not?” she asked calmly.

The Count was gazing at her as one might gaze upon a tragedy.

“It is not a fortune!” he exclaimed.  “It is not even a dot!  It is nothing at all, a year’s income, a trifle.”

“Nevertheless,” Jeanne said calmly, “it is all that I possess.  You see,” she continued, “I have come back to my stepmother to tell her that if I am bound by law to do as she wishes until I am of age, I will be dutiful and marry the man whom she chooses for me, but I wish to tell you two things quite frankly.  The first you have just heard.  The second is that I do not care for you in the least, that in fact I rather dislike you.”

The Princess buried her head in her hands.  She was not anxious to look at any one just then, or to be looked at.  The Count rose to his feet.  There were drops of perspiration upon his forehead.  He was distracted.

“Is this true, madam?” he asked of the Princess.

“It is true,” she admitted.

He leaned towards her.

“What about my three thousand pounds?” he whispered.  “Who will pay me back that?  It is cheating.  That money has been gained by what you call false pretences.  There is punishment for that, eh?”

The Princess dabbed at her eyes with a little morsel of lace handkerchief.

“One must live,” she murmured.  “It was not I who talked about Jeanne’s fortune.  It was all the world who said how rich she was.  Why should I contradict them?  I wanted a place once more in the only Society in Europe which counts, English society.  There was only one way and I took it.  So long as people believed Jeanne to be the heiress of a great fortune, I was made welcome wherever I chose to go.  That is the truth, my dear Count.”

“It is all very well,” the Count answered, “but the money I have advanced you?”

“You took your own risk,” the Princess answered, coldly.  “I was not to know that you were expecting to repay yourself out of Jeanne’s fortune.  It is not too late.  You are not married to her.”

“No,” the Count said slowly, “I am not married to her.”