"Still, should you desire by any chance to change this wish; if you will profit by the events which this meeting of the prince and Bertha at your house must still further precipitate, unless you oppose it, when you see me rising to go out and await M. de Brévannes, give me this pin, telling me to put it up—I shall understand that M. de Brévannes is to remain in his error."
"But——"
"Here is the prince. Give me this pin presently, and within a week you are free: otherwise, renounce M. de Morville for ever."
M. de Hansfeld entered his wife's apartment at this moment.
Iris was in the habit of remaining with her mistress, even when she received visits. Her presence at the following scene appeared therefore perfectly natural to the prince.
CHAPTER XLV
[WILD-FOWL SHOOTING]
M. de Hansfeld was surprised, agitated, and excited.
He had seen Bertha alight from a carriage with De Brévannes,—Bertha, to whom he had, as he believed, said adieu for ever at their last interview at Pierre Raimond's.
Never having known that Paula was acquainted with De Brévannes, Arnold could not conceive why he had brought his wife to the Hôtel Lambert, and how Madame de Hansfeld had formed an intimacy with Bertha, of whom she knew he was enamoured. Had not Paula, in order to escape the journey to Germany which her husband had threatened, in her turn menaced him with disclosing to M. de Brévannes the interviews he had had with Bertha at the engraver's?