“Nay, madame, I, for my part, caught something on the rocks of Saint Jouain which I am anxious to carry home with me.”
She put on an innocent and knowing look.
“You? What can it be? What can you have found?”
“A wife. And my mother and I have come to ask you whether she had changed her mind this morning.”
She smiled: “No, monsieur. I never change my mind.”
And then he held out his hand, wide open, and she put hers into it with a quick, determined movement. Then he said: “As soon as possible, I hope.”
“As soon as you like.”
“In six weeks?”
“I have no opinion. What does my future mother-in-law say?”
Mme. Roland replied with a rather melancholy smile: