"Strange or not, do you accept my proposal, yes or no?"
"Accept—monsieur? Accept for a daughter-in-law—a—a person who has given music lessons for a living?"
"Such sensitiveness on your part is truly heroic, doubtless, but I must call your attention to the fact that your son has little or nothing, and that Mlle. Herminie de Maillefort, though she has done such a scandalous thing as to earn an honest living, would bring M. de Senneterre two hundred thousand francs a year, and an alliance with the Haut-Martel family. I also take the liberty of reminding you that your son will probably kill himself if he does not marry this young lady. I know you would rather see him dead than married to some one beneath him, for the mother of the Gracchi is not to be compared with you, so far as stoicism is concerned, but it is none the less certain that the extinction of the house of Senneterre in such a fashion would cause a frightful scandal, which would, I think, be even worse than a mésalliance, especially when a Senneterre makes a mésalliance with a Maillefort de Haut-Martel."
"But, monsieur, every one will know that this young person is only your adopted child."
"All I can say in reply to that objection, madame, is that I, myself, could never have had so beautiful, so affectionate, and so truly noble a child."
"You know her well, then?"
"You certainly ask a singular question, madame. What! can you believe that I—being the man you know me to be—would give my name to a person who would not be an honour to that name?"
"But, monsieur," exclaimed Madame de Senneterre, in a tone of sorrowful reproach, "there can be no denying the fact that your adopted daughter has been a—a professional artiste."
"My adopted daughter, will, indeed, have the terrible misfortune to be and to have been a musical artiste of a high order. This is truly deplorable. I weep—I mourn—I bewail the fact. But, alas! you know the proverb, 'The prettiest girl in the world has some fault.'"
"And her patrons, do they belong to our set?"