She intrusted therefore to the concierge the remaining ring to be pawned.  Calculating from the sum she had received for the first ring, she hoped to obtain for this one, at the very least, five or six hundred francs.

The concierge brought her one hundred and ninety francs.

At first, she was convinced the man had robbed her; and she gave him to understand that she thought so.  But he showed her the receipt in a perfect rage.

“Look there,” he said, “and remember to whom you are talking!”

On the receipt she read in fact these words:  “Advanced, two hundred francs.”  Convinced of the injustice of her accusations, Henrietta had to make her apologies, and hardly succeeded by means of a ten-franc-piece in soothing the man’s wounded feelings.

Alas! the poor girl did not know that one is always at liberty to pledge an article only for a given sum, a part of its real value; and she was too inexperienced in such matters to notice the reference to that mode of pawning on her receipt.  However, it was one of those mishaps for poor Henrietta which cannot be mended, and from which we never recover.  She lost two months’ existence, the very time, perhaps, that was needed till Daniel’s return.  Still the day when the rent was due came, and she paid her hundred francs.  The second day after that, she was once more without money, and, according to Mrs. Chevassat’s elegant expression, forced to “live on her poor possessions.”  But the pawnbroker had too cruelly disappointed her calculations:  she would not resort to him again, and risk a second disappointment.

This time she thought she would, instead of pawning, sell, her gold-dressing-case; and she requested the obliging lady below to procure her a purchaser.  At first Mrs. Chevassat raised a host of objections.

“To sell such a pretty toy!” she said, “it’s murder!  Just think, you’ll never see it again.  If, on the other hand, you carry it to ‘Uncle’ you can take it out again as soon as you have a little money.”

But she lost her pains, she saw and at last consented to bring up a kind of dealer in toilet-articles, an excellent honest man, she declared, in whom one could put the most absolute confidence.  And he really showed himself worthy of her warm recommendation; for he offered instantly five hundred francs for the dressing-case, which was not worth much more than three times as much.  Nor was this his last bid.  After an hour’s irritating discussions, after having ten times pretended to leave the room, he drew with many sighs his portemonnaie from its secret home, and counted upon the table the seven hundred francs in gold upon which Henrietta had stoutly insisted.

That was enough to pay Mrs. Chevassat for four months’ board.

“But no,” said the poor young girl to herself, “that would be pusillanimous in the highest degree.”

And that very evening she summoned all her courage, and told the formidable woman in a firm tone of voice, that henceforth she would only take one meal, dinner.  She had chosen this half-way measure in order not to avoid a scene, for that she knew she could not hope for, but a regular falling-out.