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 know she held it until she put it down on her mantelpiece and saw in the mirror above it her own smiling, glowing face.

"No, Louis," she said to the picture, shaking her head solemnly, "it is not to be. I have been a fool heretofore in not saying outright that I wouldn't marry you to save your life. But now my mind is made up. Nobody can make me marry you, and I would not do it if Cartouche, the Holy Father and the Emperor all commanded me to marry you!"

Then an impish thought came into Fifi's head, for Fifi was in some respects a cruel young person. She would make Louis himself refuse to marry her and contrive so that all the blame would be visited upon the innocent Louis, while she, the wicked Fifi, would go free. In a flash it was revealed to her; it was to get rid of her hundred thousand francs. Then Louis would not marry her—and oh, rapture! Cartouche would.

"He can't refuse," thought Fifi in an ecstasy. "When I have been jilted and cruelly used, and have no money, then I can go back to the stage, and everybody will know me as Mademoiselle Chiaramonti, granddaughter of the Pope's cousin, who won the great prize in the lottery; everybody