"If I were in your place, I would do nothing of the kind!" cried the baroness.
"Do so by all means," said the solicitor in an undertone. "A word of amiable and modest resignation costs a heart like yours nothing at all."
The countess wrote two lines and handed them to Marcel.
"Let us hope," he said, as he rose to go, "that the Marquis d'Estrelle will be touched by your gentleness."
"He is not a bad man," replied Julie, "but he is very old and feeble, and his second wife governs him completely."
"She is a genuine plague spot, that ex-Madame d'Orlandes!" cried the baroness.
"Do not speak ill of her, madame la baronne," retorted Marcel; "she belongs to that society and entertains those opinions which you certainly look upon as the law and the prophets."
"What is that, monsieur le procureur?"
"She abhors the new ideas and considers the privileges of birth the blessed ark of tradition."
"Do not insult me by comparing me to that woman," said the baroness; "that her ideas are all right is very possible; but her actions are all wrong. She is miserly, and people say that she would even desert her opinions for money."