"So you are going to marry your mistress, are you?"
Frantz's wife was so vexed at not having been consulted that she lost her usual self-command.
"My mistress?" repeated the painter. "You are deucedly outspoken. Well, what if I do marry the Princess Lise, what harm would there be in it?"
"What harm? Do you hear him, Frantz? What harm! Do you suppose that your mother and your brother would ever let you make such a marriage? A divorced woman!"
"If she were not divorced I could not marry her."
"So much the better."
"What! You who are so strait-laced would rather that she should remain my—my— What you say—than that she should become my wife?"
Seeing that the change of ground was not in her favor, Mme. Meyrin did not know what to answer. Frantz, a good sort of fellow, caring most of all for peace and quietness, did not wish to carry the discussion further. With a look he advised his brother to remain cool.
"Well, for that matter, let us wait; there is no harm done yet." He ended by saying like a coward, "When the princess is divorced, we shall see."
So saying, he left the room abruptly, and his sister-in-law in her astonishment.