"I knew of it by seeing her, yes, as I was coming down stairs a while since—she was going to her rooms from this one, with her maid."
"It's a lucky thing that Mademoiselle Daniels refused to occupy them!" exclaimed Antonino. "Why did you not speak to your wife?"
"Because I can have nothing to say to her and she would speak to me nothing but lies," said Clemenceau in so severe and convinced a tone that the young man remained silent, hurt at the judgment pronounced upon his idol by its own high-priest. "What are you brooding over?" he inquired, after an embarrassing pause.
"My dear master, I think that I ought to ask leave of absence since I have finished the work of designing the bullet most fit for the gas-rifle."
"Do you ask leave of me, at your age, as of a schoolmaster?"
The relations between the adopted son and the architect, who had mistaken his bent and become an innovator in artillery, had been affectionate, and on the younger man's side respectful. He had never taken any serious steps without asking his consent.
"Well, where did you think of going?" asked Clemenceau.
"To Paris."
"To show the rifle and projectile complete? No, we can test the latter at the new series of firing experiments before the Ordnance Committee. The Minister of War and the Emperor will not thank you for disturbing them for so little. It was the great gun they wanted. They are wedded to the Chassepot for the soldier's gun and, besides, the government musket factories are opposed to so great a novelty."
"I need exercise—action—the open air," persisted the Italian.