"Yes, yours; because if I had discovered who this lover was, I might have given him some valuable hints, and all might come right very quickly; as it is, you may have to wait a long time for a bride."
"I? Why, I am not Mademoiselle Madeleine's lover!"
"No, but you are very dependent upon him. You cannot encircle your bride's finger with a wedding-ring until he passes one on the taper finger of his."
"Bertha, that is unreasonable!" remonstrated Gaston.
"All the more womanly! Of course it is unreasonable; I never laid claim to being reasonable; but, on the other hand, I am obstinate. When Madeleine names the day for her marriage she names the day for mine."
"But if she should never marry, and that is possible."
"Then I never shall!" said Bertha, with a petulant little air of determination which looked only too real.
M. de Bois had no opportunity at that moment to test the effect of his newly-acquired eloquence, for Maurice entered.
"Bertha, will you believe that I have escorted my grandmother home and actually forgotten you? The carriage waits, and I am deputed to see you safely to the hotel."