"Madame," I broke out, "you are a sensualist. Under all your serenity,
your peace, and your decorum, you are an undenied sensualist. Make your
own bed warm and soft; take sedatives and meats, and drinks spiced and
sweet, as much as you will. If you have any sorrow or
disappointment--and, perhaps, you have--nay, I _know_ you have--seek
your own palliatives, in your own chosen resources. Leave me, however.
_Leave me_, I say!"

"I must send another to watch you, Meess: I must send Goton."

"I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my life, and my
troubles. Oh, Madame! in _your_ hand there is both chill and poison.
You envenom and you paralyze."

"What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot marry."

"Dog in the manger!" I said: for I knew she secretly wanted him, and
had always wanted him. She called him "insupportable:" she railed at
him for a "devot:" she did not love, but she wanted to marry, that she
might bind him to her interest. Deep into some of Madame's secrets I
had entered--I know not how: by an intuition or an inspiration which
came to me--I know not whence. In the course of living with her too, I
had slowly learned, that, unless with an inferior, she must ever be a
rival. She was _my_ rival, heart and soul, though secretly, under the
smoothest bearing, and utterly unknown to all save her and myself.

Two minutes I stood over Madame, feeling that the whole woman was in my
power, because in some moods, such as the present--in some stimulated
states of perception, like that of this instant--her habitual disguise,
her mask and her domino, were to me a mere network reticulated with
holes; and I saw underneath a being heartless, self-indulgent, and
ignoble. She quietly retreated from me: meek and self-possessed, though
very uneasy, she said, "If I would not be persuaded to take rest, she
must reluctantly leave me." Which she did incontinent, perhaps even
more glad to get away, than I was to see her vanish.

This was the sole flash-eliciting, truth-extorting, rencontre which
ever occurred between me and Madame Beck: this short night-scene was
never repeated. It did not one whit change her manner to me. I do not
know that she revenged it. I do not know that she hated me the worse
for my fell candour. I think she bucklered herself with the secret
philosophy of her strong mind, and resolved to forget what it irked her
to remember. I know that to the end of our mutual lives there occur