d it seemed
to me this would be easy, after all I had done since the morning to
irritate him.

When I entered his study I must have been very pale. I felt myself in
the lion's cage. The thought flashed across me: "Suppose he killed me!"
He did not present a very terrible appearance, however, leaning back on
his divan, a cigar in his mouth.

"Do I disturb you?" I asked in my most ironical voice.

He replied gently:

"No. You see. I am not working."

Myself, viciously:

"Ah! indeed you don't work then at all, now?"

He still very mild.

"You are mistaken, my dear. On the contrary, I work a great deal. Only
our craft is one in which a great deal of work can be done without
having a tool in hand."

"And what may you be doing at this moment? Ah! yes, I know, your play
in verse; always the same thing for the last two years. It is certainly
lucky that your wife had a fortune! That allows you to idle at your
ease."

I thought he would have sprung upon me at this. Not a bit of it. He came
up to me and took hold of my hands gently:

"Come, is it to be always the same thing? Are we to begin our life of
warfare again? If so, why did you come back?"

I confess I felt rather moved by his sad and affectionate tone; but
I thought of you, my poor Aunt, of your exile, of his harsh conduct
towards us, and that gave me courage. I said to him the bitterest, most
wounding things I could think of--I know not what--that I wished to
heaven I had never married an artist; that at Moulins, every one pitied
me; that I found my friends married to magistrates, serious, influential
men, in good positions, while he--If even he made money--But no,
Monsieur would work for fame only! and what fame!

[Illustration: p127-138]

At Moulins no one knew him; at Paris, his pieces were hissed. His books
did not sell. And so on, and so on. My brain seemed to whirl round as
all the malicious words came from me one after the other. He looked
at me without replying, in chilly anger. Of course this coldness
exasperated me still more. I was so much excited, that I no longer
recognized my own voice, raised to an extraordinary pitch, and the last
words I screamed at him--I can't remember what unjust and mad remark
it was--seemed to buzz indistinctly in my ears. For a moment, I thought
Monsieur Petitbry's assault with violence was an accomplished fact.
Pallid, with set teeth Henri made two steps towards me:

"Madame!"

Then suddenly, his anger fell,