"As if I were thinking of you!"
"Whether you are thinking of me or not, I am here, I see what is going on, and your coquetry pains me terribly."
A slight flush rose in her cheeks at that reproach.
"I, a coquette! With whom?"
"With him," said the Irishman, pointing to the superb apelike bust.
She tried to laugh.
"The Nabob. What nonsense!"
"Do not lie. Do you think I am blind, that I don't understand all your manoeuvres? You stay alone with him a long while. I was at the door just now. I saw you." He lowered his voice as if his breath had failed him. "What are you after, in heaven's name, you strange, heartless child? I have seen you repel the handsomest, the noblest, the greatest. That little de Géry devours you with his eyes, but you pay no heed to him. Even the Duc de Mora has not succeeded in reaching your heart. And this man, a shocking, vulgar creature, who isn't thinking of you, who has something very different from love in his head—you saw how he went away just now! What are you aiming at? What do you expect from him?"
"I intend—I intend that he shall marry me. There."
Coolly, in a softer tone, as if the confession had drawn her nearer to the man she despised so bitterly, she set forth her reasons. She had luxurious, extravagant tastes, unmethodical habits which nothing could overcome and which would infallibly lead her to poverty and destitution, and good Crenmitz too, who allowed herself to be ruined without a word. In three years, four years at most, it would be all over. And then would come debts and desperate expedients, the ragged gowns and old shoes of poor artists' households. Or else the lover, the keeper, that is to say slavery and degradation.