The Abbé Roux cleared his throat. "Let us go into the next room," he said. "We can talk quietly there without being overheard by the servants"—and he led the way into the apartment specially devoted to his use.
"Ah, my dear monsieur," he said, as soon as they had shut the double doors behind them, "it is not to be wondered at if Madame la Princesse is upset! Since you have been away, Donna Bianca has made a scene—a veritable scene, you understand. It appears that she has asserted her fixed determination to marry this impossible young man, and has announced that she will wait till she is her own mistress, if—"
"If what?" asked Monsieur d'Antin, as he paused.
"Parbleu! If her lover does not choose that she should marry him before—the religious marriage, of course."
Monsieur d'Antin lit a cigarette.
"A girl's enthusiasm," he observed. "It will pass."
The abbé glanced at him. "I think not," he replied. "I have known Donna Bianca since she was a child. When she has made up her mind to do or not to do a thing, it is not easy to make her alter it. She is undisciplined—completely undisciplined," he added, almost angrily.
"No doubt. It is all the more reason that she should learn what discipline means. She will make a better wife for knowing it," and Monsieur d'Antin chuckled softly.
"Ah, as to that, monsieur, there can be, I suppose, no question. But what I have already told you is not all. The princess, perhaps, would not have taken Donna Bianca's refusal to submit her will to the direction of those who are her lawful guardians so deeply to heart, if that had been all. She would have trusted to time and—and to Donna Bianca's conscience, to make her step-daughter see reason and realize that obedience is the first of all duties."
Monsieur d'Antin fidgeted uneasily in his chair. "I think, Monsieur l'Abbé," he said, dryly, "that you and I can afford to dispense with moralities, can we not?"