Attacked unexpectedly, and feeling a sort of pride in hiding nothing, Lise had told her mother everything—her love for the painter, the prince's ultimatum, what had happened since, and lastly, her intention to marry again at once.
The general's wife, having listened frowningly to her daughter's story, broke out at this latter part, exclaiming:
"You are mad. Whether you have deceived your husband, concerns, perhaps, yourself alone; but that you should become Madame Meyrin after having been the Princess Olsdorf! No, that you never shall! What! have I lived for twenty years with this one object before me, that you should be a great lady, and am I to see you turned into a miserable little artist's wife? Never! Monsieur Meyrin is a scoundrel. He loved you through vanity, and would now marry you through interest. I will speak to him plainly, depend upon me."
Lise tried vainly to calm her mother.
"He knows you are rich," she went on, "and that after my death you will be richer. That is his sort of love. If you were poor he would not dream of making you his wife. I swear that neither of you need expect anything from me. Is it possible that after my training of you, you can be in love with this showy fellow, a dauber of no name or talent? Ah! you are your father's own daughter."
"What do you mean?" said Lise, quickly, in great surprise.
"Nothing, nothing," said Mme. Podoi, biting her lips.
She had almost forgotten in her anger that for everybody, and above all for Lise herself, her daughter was the daughter of Count Barineff.
She went on a moment afterward:
"Have you thought nothing of your children who will be taken from you?"