Left alone with his wife, she laughed, and looking into his eyes said: "Mme. Walter has taken a fancy to you!"
He replied incredulously: "Nonsense!"
"But I know it. She spoke of you to me with great enthusiasm. She said she would like to find two husbands like you for her daughters. Fortunately she is not susceptible herself."
He did not understand her and repeated: "Susceptible herself?"
She replied in a tone of conviction: "Oh, Mme. Walter is irreproachable. Her husband you know as well as I. But she is different. Still she has suffered a great deal in having married a Jew, though she has been true to him; she is a virtuous woman."
Du Roy was surprised: "I thought her a Jewess."
"She a Jewess! No, indeed! She is the prime mover in all the charitable movements at the Madeleine. She was even married by a priest. I am not sure but that M. Walter went through the form of baptism."
Georges murmured: "And—she—likes—me—"
"Yes. If you were not married I should advise you to ask for the hand of—Suzanne—would you not prefer her to Rose?"
He replied as he twisted his mustache: "Eh! the mother is not so bad!"