“See here, Mathilde, how much would this cost, a proper dress, which would do on other occasions; something very simple?”
She reflected a few seconds, going over her calculations, and thinking also of the sum which she might ask without meeting an immediate refusal and a frightened exclamation from the frugal clerk.
“At last, she answered hesitatingly:—
“I don’t know exactly, but it seems to me that with four hundred francs I might do it.”
He grew a little pale, for he was reserving just that sum to buy a gun and treat himself to a little shooting, the next summer, on the plain of Nanterre, with some friends who used to shoot larks there on Sundays.
But he said:—