“So you made the appalling discovery that I did not belong upon a pedestal. That was inevitable, though I must say it was not as if I had endeavored to hide it from you. And you resented it fiercely. That too, I suppose, was only you romantic men all over, though it was just as foolish as the mooning. And from what I can gather, you appear to have been equally rash and—if you do not mind my saying so, dear,—equally inconsiderate, in your treatment of your other wives. Though, to be sure, whatever you could see in those women, even at the first—!”
“I am a Puysange. We are ardent—”
“In any event, it is not as if anything could be done about them now. So, really, Florian, taking one consideration with another, I do not see why, now that we have talked it over amicably, and you have more or less explained yourself,—and, I am willing to believe, are quite properly sorry,—we should not get on tolerably well. And about men I say nothing, because one does want to be kind, but I doubt if any woman anywhere really hopes for more than that when she marries.”
Melior had stopped talking. Not that fact alone had roused Florian to chill amazement. He said, “You plan, madame—?”
“Why, first of all, I plan for both of us to appeal, in a suitably religious and polite manner, to your patron saint. That is the plain duty of a Christian. For if this Janicot has any real claim upon the little darling, you surely must see how much nicer it would be, in every way, for Hoprig to be working miracles against him instead of smiting you with something unpleasant. And besides, I do not see how he can have any real claim—”
Florian resolutely thrust aside the suspicion that this obstinate and shiny and gross-minded woman was now planning, among other enormities, to return to living with him. He said only:
“I am astounded. I am grieved. You would have me meanly crawl out of my bargain by invoking the high powers of Heaven to help me in a swindle, very much as one hears of dishonest persons repudiating fair debts through the chicanery of a death-bed repentance. Pardieu, madame! since you suggest such infamies, and since you will not hear reason, I can but leave you, to defy this Hoprig to his ugly nose, and to perish, if necessary, upon his woodpile with untarnished faith.”
He turned sadly from this woman who appeared to have no sense of logic or honor, not even any elementary notion of fair-dealing. And as Florian turned, he saw the door open, and through the doorway came first an armful of faggots and behind it the flushed but still benevolent face of Hoprig.
