“Confess it!—yes!”
Frantz gazed at her a moment without speaking. She, too, had turned pale, notwithstanding her calmness, and the eternal little smile no longer quivered at the corners of her mouth.
He continued:
“Listen to me, Sidonie! My brother’s name, the name he gave his wife, is mine as well. Since Risler is so foolish, so blind as to allow the name to be dishonored by you, it is my place to defend it against your attacks. I beg you, therefore, to inform Monsieur Georges Fromont that he must change mistresses as soon as possible, and go elsewhere to ruin himself. If not—”
“If not?” queried Sidonie, who had not ceased to play with her rings while he was speaking.
“If not, I shall tell my brother what is going on in his house, and you will be surprised at the Risler whose acquaintance you will make then—a man as violent and ungovernable as he usually is inoffensive. My disclosure will kill him perhaps, but you can be sure that he will kill you first.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Very well! let him kill me. What do I care for that?”
This was said with such a heartbroken, despondent air that Frantz, in spite of himself, felt a little pity for that beautiful, fortunate young creature, who talked of dying with such self-abandonment.
“Do you love him so dearly?” he said, in an indefinably milder tone. “Do you love this Fromont so dearly that you prefer to die rather than renounce him?”