"You are an honest woman, and I am a thief," Madame Fontaine answered, with the same ominous composure. "How can explanations pass between you and me? Have I not spoken plainly enough already? In my position, I say again, your conditions are impossibilities—especially the first of them."
There was something in the bitterly ironical manner which accompanied this reply that was almost insolent. Mrs. Wagner's color began to rise for the first time. "Honest conditions are always possible conditions to honest people," she said.
Perfectly unmoved by the reproof implied in those words, Madame Fontaine persisted in pressing her request. "I only ask you to modify your terms," she explained. "Let us understand each other. Do you still insist on my replacing what I have taken, by the morning of the sixth of this month?"
"I still insist."
"Do you still expect me to resign my position here as director of the household, on the day when Fritz and Minna have become man and wife?"
"I still expect that."
"Permit me to set the second condition aside for awhile. Suppose I fail to replace the five thousand florins in your reserve fund?"
"If you fail, I shall do my duty to Mr. Keller, when we divide profits on the sixth of the month."
"And you will expose me in this way, knowing that you make the marriage impossible—knowing that you doom my daughter to shame and misery for the rest of her life?"
"I shall expose you, knowing that I have kept your guilty secret to the last moment—and knowing what I owe to my partner and to myself. You have still four days to spare. Make the most of your time."