"I mean that, if you are willing, we can arrange the matter."
"If this proposition affects my honor, it is useless to make it."
"It does not."
"Then you will be welcome at Plobsheim."
And, bowing without hope but also without tears, she opened the door, crossed the dining-room, and passed out with a slight inclination of the head to the other guests. Neither the three men nor the boy could see her face, which was completely concealed in her hood.
The commissioner of the Republic followed her; he watched the dining-room door until she had closed it, and then listened until he heard the wheels of her carriage roll away. Then, approaching the table, he filled his own glass and those of his friends with the entire contents of a bottle of Liebfraumilch, and said: "With this generous wine let us drink to the health of citizeness Clotilde Brumpt, the betrothed of Jean-Georges-Euloge Schneider."
He raised his glass, and, deeming it useless to ask for an explanation which he probably would not give, his four friends followed his example.