“A marriage? oh, laws, yes!” said Dumoulin, shrugging his shoulders.
“What! is it not a marriage?” said Rose-Pompon, again much surprised.
“No.”
“And the offers you make me are honest ones, my big apostle?”
“They could not be more so.” Here Dumoulin spoke the truth.
“I shall not have to be unfaithful to Philemon?”
“No.”
“Or faithful to any one else?”
“No.”
Rose-Pompon looked confounded. Then she rattled on: “Come, do not let us have any joking! I am not foolish enough to imagine that I am to live just like a duchess, just for nothing. What, therefore, must I give in return?”