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They touched glasses. Across the golden bubbling, smiles leapt.

“Let us,” said the second brigand, “leave the pair in question to talk the matter over, while the rest of us go and attend to the purchase of my barge.”

“Well thought,” said Asabri. “My children, we shall be gone about an hour. See if, in that time, you cannot grow fond of each other. Perhaps, if you took the bag of money into the house and pretended that it already belonged to both of you, and counted it over, something might be accomplished.”

The youngest brigand caught the sullen one by the sleeve and whispered in his ear.

“If you want her, let her count the money. If you don’t, count it yourself.”

The second brigand turned to Asabri. “Excellency,” he whispered, “you are as much my father as his.”

“True,” said Asabri, “what of it?”

“Nothing! Only, the man who owns the barge which I desire to purchase has a very beautiful daughter.”

Asabri laughed so that for a moment he could not bend over to crank his car. And he cried aloud:

“France, France, I thank thee for thy champagne! And I thank thee, O Italy, for thy merry hearts and thy suggestive climate!… My son, if the bargeman’s daughter is to be had for the asking, she is yours. But we must tell the father that until recently you have been a very naughty fellow.”

They remained with the second brigand long enough to see him exchange a kiss of betrothal with the bargeman’s daughter, while the bargeman busied himself counting the money; and then they returned to see how the sullen brigand and the pretty widow were getting on.

The sullen brigand was cutting dead-wood out of a fig tree with a saw. His face was supremely happy. The widow stood beneath and directed him.

“Closer to the tree, stupid,” she said, “else the wound will not heal properly.”

The youngest brigand laid a hand that trembled upon Asabri’s arm.

“Oh, my father,” he said, “these doves are already cooing! And it is very far to the place where I would be.”

But Asabri went first to the fig tree, and he said to the widow:

“Is all well?”

“Yes,” she said, “we have agreed to differ for the rest of our lives. It seems that this stupid fellow needs somebody to look after him. And it seems to be God’s will that that somebody should be I.”

“Bless you then, my children,” said Asabri; “and farewell! I shall come to the wedding.”

They returned the notary to his little home in the village; and the fees which he was to receive for the documents which he was to draw up made him so happy that he flung his arms about his wife, who was rather a prim person, and fell to kissing her with the most boisterous good will.

It was dusk when they reached the village in which the sweetheart of the youngest brigand lived. Asabri thought that he had never seen a girl more exquisite.

“And we have loved each other,” said the youngest brigand, his arm about her firm, round waist, “since we were children…. I think I am dying, I am so happy.”

“Shall you buy a farm, a barge, a business?” asked the banker.

“Whatever is decided,” said the girl, “it will be a paradise.”

Her old father came out of the house.

“I have counted the money. It is correct.”

Then he rolled his fat eyes heavenward, just as the youngest brigand had prophesied, and said: “Bless you, my children!”

“I must be going,” said Asabri; “but there is one thing.”

Four dark luminous eyes looked into his.

“You have not kissed,” said Asabri; “let it be now, so that I may remember.”

Without embarrassment, the young brigand and his sweetheart folded their arms closely about each other, and kissed each other, once, slowly, with infinite tenderness.

“I am nineteen,” said the youngest brigand; then, and he looked heavenward: “God help us to forget the years that have been wasted!”