er dark eyebrows had been made still darker, and
that she was powdered. This discovery had a peculiar effect on him: it
rendered it easier for him to say hard things to her; at the same time,
it strengthened his determination not to let her go out of the house.
Moving aimlessly about the room, he stumbled against a chair, and
kicked it from him.

"A month ago, if some one had sworn to me that you would treat me as
you are doing to-night, I should have laughed in his face," he said at
last.

Louise had put the candle down, and was standing with her back to him.
Taking up a pair of long, black gloves, she began to draw one over her
hand. She did not look up at his words, but went on stroking the kid of
the glove.

"You're only doing it to revenge yourself--I know that! But what have I
done, that you should take less thought for my feelings than if I were
a dog?"

Still she did not speak.

"You won't really go, Louise?--you won't have the heart to.--I say you
shall not go! It will be the end--the end of everything!--if you leave
the house to-night."

She pulled her dress from his hand. "You're out of your senses, I
think. The end of everything! Because, for once, I choose to have some
pleasure on my own account! Any other man would be glad to see the
woman he professes to care for, enjoy herself. But you begrudge it to
me. You say my pleasures shall only come through you--who have taken to
making life a burden to me! Can't you understand that I'm glad to get
away from you, and your ill-humours and mean, abominable jealousy.
You're not my master. I'm not your slave." She tugged at a recalcitrant
glove. "It is absurd," she went on a moment later. "All because I wish
to go out alone for once.--But did I even want to? Why, if it means so
much to you, couldn't you have bought a ticket and come too? But no!
you wouldn't go yourself, and so I was not to go either. It's on a
level with all your other behaviour."

"I go!" he cried. "To watch you the whole evening in that man's
arms!--No, thank you! It's not good enough.--You, with your indecent
style of dancing!"

She wheeled round, as if the insult had struck her; and for a moment
faced him, with open lips. Then she thought better of it: she laughed
derisively, with a wanton undertone, in order to hurt him.

"You would at least have had me under your own eyes."

As she spoke, she nodded to the old woman who opened the door to say
that the droschke waited below. A lac