Binet made a wide gesture, and swung to his daughter. "You hear
him, the mealy-mouthed prude! Perhaps you'll believe at last that
marriage with him would be the ruin of you. He would always be
there the inconvenient husband - to mar your every chance, my girl."
She tossed her lovely head in agreement with her father "I begin to
find him tiresome with his silly jealousies," she confessed. "As a
husband I am afraid he would be impossible."
Andre-Louis felt a constriction of the heart. But - always the
actor - he showed nothing of it. He laughed a little, not very
pleasantly, and rose.
"I bow to your choice, mademoiselle. I pray that you may not
regret it."
"Regret it?" cried M. Binet. He was laughing, relieved to see his
daughter at last rid of this suitor of whom he had never approved,
if we except those few hours when he really believed him to be an
eccentric of distinction. "And what shall she regret? That she
accepted the protection of a nobleman so powerful and wealthy that
as a mere trinket he gives her a jewel worth as much as an actress
earns in a year at the Comedie Francaise?" He got up, and advanced
towards Andre-Louis.
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