Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/337

 she would wear no low bodices, she would eat fish twice a-week—the red mullets were really very nice—and she would go for all holy week en retraite: if she did all that, the most severe monitor could not require her to give up Maurice.

Poor Maurice! she smiled to herself, in the middle of a yawn; how devoted he was!—he only lived on her breath, and if she dismissed him would kill himself with absinthe. She really believed it. She did not dream that Maurice, submissive slave though he was, had his consolations for slavery, and was at that moment looking into the eyes of the prettiest artist's model in Floralia.

It was the Day of Ashes, as all the bells of the city had tolled out far and wide; and Madame Mila, over her green tea, really felt penitent. For the post had brought her three terribly thick letters, and the letters were bills; and the sum total that was wanted immediately was some sixty thousand francs, and how could a poor dear little woman who had spent all her money send that or a tenth of it: and Spiridion