Page:The fortunes of Fifi (IA fortunesoffifi00seawiala).pdf/144

 am only certain of one thing, and that is that Louis Bourcet will never become Monsieur Fifi Chiaramonti—for that is just what it would amount to, he is so good and so colorless. I am not in the least sorry for Louis. I am only sorry for myself that I have been bothered with him so long, and besides, I wish to marry some one else. Fifi."

Fifi crept into bed after writing this letter. For the first time she found the hard lump in the middle of her mattress uncomfortable.

"Never mind," thought Fifi to herself, "I shall soon be rid of it, and sleep in peace, as I haven't done since I had it."

Fifi's dreams were happy that night, and when she waked in the morning she felt a kind of dewy freshness in her heart, like the awakening of spring. It was springtime already, and as Fifi lay cosily in her little white bed she contrived joyous schemes for her own benefit, which some people might have called plotting mischief. She reasoned with herself thus:

"Fifi, you have been miserable ever since you got the odious, hateful hundred thousand francs, and it was nasty of Cartouche to give you the lottery