hen she repeated the words, "I am the wife of
Gaston Cheverny."

Still standing, she came nearer to me--I had risen too--and kept on:

"I have not words to describe to you Regnard's countenance at that. It
was not disappointment; it seemed to be only the most overmastering
rage. It is his nature to bear a secret disappointment stoically, but
he knew that Gaston must hear of what had passed--and besides--he had
paid me court more steadily and assiduously ever since I was fourteen
than Gaston himself--for Gaston, you must know, has had periods of
jealousy and pique, and for months together, has sometimes refrained
from writing to me or seeing me. Not so Regnard. The words that would
inflame Gaston to anger, Regnard would pass with a cool smile--I liked
him none the better for it. But he was not cool then. He said in a
suppressed fury:

"'Madame, you have perhaps forgotten, that in the time you have been
my brother's wife, you have had many declarations of love from me, and
possibly from other gentlemen. True, I made not mine in set words, as
I have done this day--but it would have been as well to have confided
the secret of your marriage to me before this.'

"I was more angry than he at that--but Babache, no woman can help
pitying a man who loves her, ever so little, if it but be true
love--and I believe Regnard loved me truly in his way. I replied to
this, therefore, with anger, but not without pity. 'You made me no
declaration in words, Monsieur,--and you must remember that every
dictate of prudence recommended in these uncertain times, that my
marriage with your brother be kept secret for the present, at least.'

"'If prudence was your chiefest consideration, Madame,' said Regnard,
with a bow, 'I wonder that you married my brother at all.'

"Babache, that would have angered any woman on earth, and as you know,
I am not the most long-suffering person in the world. So I said: 'Oh,
no, you mistake me, Monsieur. My chief object was to bind your
brother to me--for I love him so much that I could not bear the
thought that he should go away without forging a chain that would
bring him back to me!'"

Francezka, still unconsciously acting her part, said this with such a
depth of feeling, such love, devotion, admiration for Gaston Cheverny
expressed in every tone of her voice, every glance of her eye, that it
must have been wormwood to a haughty, jealous and disappointed man
like Regnard Cheverny. And I made not the slig