fast which Madame had placed on the table at the first sound which
heralded his approach. There was nothing there to break the tension and
to set free the pent-up storm within. Much meditation, with fear and
trembling, had taught Madame the proper amount of butter to apply to the
hot toast, the proportion of sugar and cream to add to the coffee, and
the exact shade of crisp and brown to put on his fried eggs. But a man
bent on trouble can invariably find a cause for turning it loose.

"Where is Elise?" he demanded.

"Elise," Madame answered, evasively, "she is around somewhere."

"Somewhere is nowhere. I demand to know." Pierre looked threatening.

"Shall I call her?" Madame vouchsafed.

"If you know not where she is, how shall you call her? Heh? If you know,
mek ansaire!"

"I don't know where she is."

"_Bien!_" Pierre reseated himself and began to munch his toast savagely.

Madame was having a struggle with herself. It showed plainly on the
thin, anxious face. The lips compressed with determination, the eyes
set, then wavered, and again the indeterminate lines of acquiescent
subjection gained their accustomed ascendency. Back and forth assertion
and complaisance fled and followed; only assertion was holding its own.

The eggs had disappeared, also the greater part of the toast. Pierre
swallowed the last of his coffee, and, without a look at his silent
wife, began to push his chair from the table. Madame's voice startled
him.

"Elise is sixteen," she ventured.

Pierre fell back in his chair, astonished. The words were simple and
uncompromising, but the intonation suggested that they were not final.

"Well?" he asked, explosively.

"When are you going to send Elise away to school?"

"To school?" Pierre was struggling with his astonishment.

"Yes." Madame was holding herself to her determination with an effort.

"To school? _Baste!_ She read, she write, she mek ze figure, is it not
suffice? Heh?"

"That makes no difference. You promised her father that you would send
her away to school."

Pierre looked around apprehensively.

"Shut up! Kip quiet!"

"I won't shut up, and I won't keep quiet." Madame's blood was warming.
The sensation was as pleasant as it was unusual. "I will keep quiet for
myself. I won't for Elise."

"Elise! Elise! Ain't I do all right by Elise?" Pierre asked,
aggressively. "She have plenty to eat, plenty to wear, you tek good care
of her. Don't I tek good care, also? Me? Pierre