"I haven't the least idea! Want of heart, probably! Oh! I know what she is! And for that reason she won't get a farthing from me!"
She had not been very troublesome, he pointed out; at any rate, since her marriage.
"Ha! her marriage!" said Madame Dambreuse, with a sneer. And she grudged having treated only too well this stupid creature, who was jealous, self-interested, and hypocritical. "All the faults of her father!" She disparaged him more and more. There was never a person with such profound duplicity, and with such a merciless disposition into the bargain, as hard as a stone—"a bad man, a bad man!"
Even the wisest people fall into errors. Madame Dambreuse had just made a serious one through this overflow of hatred on her part. Frederick, sitting opposite her in an easy chair, was reflecting deeply, scandalised by the language she had used.
She arose and knelt down beside him.
"To be with you is the only real pleasure! You are the only one I love!"
While she gazed at him her heart softened, a nervous reaction brought tears into her eyes, and she murmured:
"Will you marry me?"
At first he thought he had not understood what she meant. He was stunned by this wealth.
She repeated in a louder tone: