"There, are you satisfied, bad boy?" said Mme. Meyrin, after writing and signing with a trembling hand. "You will talk no more of going away, will you? A duel!"
"Dear mother," replied Paul, his eyes filled with tears of gratitude as he kissed her. "I will stay in Paris, and owe you more than ever."
"And now I will go and get my scolding over—yonder."
She pressed her son again to her heart and returned to the Rue de Douai, where, to have it over and done with, she told all to her daughter-in-law, who had just come in.
"You are a free agent," said Mme. Frantz, in a tart voice, "but this woman shall not put foot in my house."
Thinking it prudent to enter into no dispute and so avoid a scene, Mme. Meyrin returned to her room.
Immediately after his mother had left him, Paul ran to tell Lise Barineff that the last obstacle to their union was done away with.
"At last, thank God!" replied the young woman. "If you had been forced to appeal to the law, I think it would have brought us bad luck. Then, too, people would have begun talking about us again. They have done so already more than enough, not only in St. Petersburg, which I have just had some letters from, but also in Paris. The newspapers are taking it up now. Have you seen this morning's 'Figaro?'"
"No. What does it say?"
"It announces our coming marriage. And see in what terms."