“Well, mother, because it is impossible.”
“Then we’ve got to keep it?” asked the Duchess.
“Well—yes, I suppose so.”
“And thank her?”
“What else can we do?”
“Don’t you agree with me, General?”
“It would have been fitter,” said the General, “if this lady, who is a stranger to you, had refrained from making you a present. But there is no reason to respond to her civility with an insult.”
Taking the ciborium in his venerable hands, the Abbé Guitrel said:
“Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles will, I feel sure, look with kindness upon this gift, presented by a pious soul to the tabernacle of her altar.”
“But, hang it all,” put in the Duke, “I am Notre-Dame-des-Belles-Feuilles in this case. If Madame de Bonmont and young Bonmont want to be invited to my house—and they certainly will want to—I shall be obliged to receive them now.”