“I will submit.”
“With a good grace?”
“With resignation.”
“With cheerful resignation?”
“I shall certainly do my best to acquire it; or, rather, if he makes you happy, I shall welcome him all the days of my life; in the contrary case, I will repeat, morning and evening, like Mme. de Lorcy: ‘You would not listen to me; you ought to have believed me.’”
“It is agreed; you are a good father, and now we are in perfect harmony,” she replied, impulsively seizing his two hands, and pressing them in her own.
He watched her a moment between his half-closed eyes, and then he cried, half resentfully:
“But, mon Dieu why do you love this man?”
She replied, in a low voice: “Because I love him; this is my sole reason; but I find it good.”
“Certainly most decisive. But, come, let us go quickly,” he replied, rising. “I fear that my retorts and crucibles, if they listen to you much longer, will fall into a syncope as prolonged as that of M. Larinski. Was ever such a debate heard of in a chemical laboratory?”