g it gently, replied: "Yes, I am very
well."

But the young woman had felt a reproach in her husband's last words.
"Finding fault! Why do you speak of finding fault? One might think that
you meant to imply something."

"Not at all," he replied, by way of excuse. "I simply meant that I was
not at all anxious although you were late, and that I did not find fault
with you for it."

She, however, took the high hand, and tried to find a pretext for a
quarrel. "Although I was late? One might really think that it was one
o'clock in the morning, and that I spent my nights away from home."

"Certainly not, my dear. I said late because I could find no other word.
You said you should be back at half-past six, and you returned at
half-past eight. That was surely being late. I understand it perfectly
well. I am not at all surprised, even. But--but--I can hardly
use any other word."

"But you pronounce them as if I had been out all night."

"Oh, no-oh, no!"

She saw that he would yield on every point, and she was going into her
own room, when at last she noticed that George was screaming, and then
she asked, with some feeling: "What is the matter with the child?"

"I told you that Julie had been rather unkind to him."

"What has the wretch been doing to him?"

"Oh nothing much. She gave him a push, and he fell down."

She wanted to see her child, and ran into the dining room, but stopped
short at the sight of the table covered with spilt wine, with broken
decanters and glasses and overturned saltcellars. "Who did all that
mischief?" she asked.

"It was Julie, who----" But she interrupted him furiously:

"That is too much, really! Julie speaks of me as if I were a shameless
woman, beats my child, breaks my plates and dishes, turns my house upside
down, and it appears that you think it all quite natural."

"Certainly not, as I have got rid of her."

"Really! You have got rid of her! But you ought to have given her in
charge. In such cases, one ought to call in the Commissary of Police!"

"But--my dear--I really could not. There was no reason. It
would have been very difficult----"

She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. "There! you will never be
anything but a poor, wretched fellow, a man without a will, without any
firmness or energy. Ah! she must have said some nice things to you, your
Julie, to make you turn her off like that. I should like to have been
here for a minute, only for a minute." Then she opened th