"And is 'that' so small a thing to you?" demanded Armand angrily. "You know that for nothing in the world would one of us be seen setting foot in a house which is on intimate terms with the Palais Royal, which receives the Orléans princes. Yet you choose a day when I am away, when my cousin cannot accompany you..."
Horatia turned round. "Please be careful what you are saying to me, Armand! I think you cannot realise that you are accusing me—me—of duplicity."
"Eh bien, what is it then?" asked her husband.
"Ignorance, stupidity, what you like, but not that," she said, "How was I to know of these ... these petty restrictions? I am English, and Lady Granville is English, and knew my father."
"Pardon me, you are French now," retorted Armand. "Permit me to remind you that you have duties towards the name which you honoured me by accepting."
His tone a little suggested that the honour was the other way round. The caged feeling came over her for a moment. "I am the prisoner of the tribe," she thought to herself. "Armand will never liberate me." She said coldly, "Lady Granville enlightened me. I am sorry, very sorry, if I have injured your prestige, but it was done in ignorance." With that she turned her back on him once more, and went and sat down by the window. Her husband followed her, biting his lip.
"I beg your pardon for supposing that you knew what you were doing," he said, still rather stiffly. "You see, Horatia, do you not—"
"I see a great many things," she said. "I see that I am to have no friends, no will, no identity of my own. I may not go out when I wish; I may not see you when I wish..."
Suddenly she heard her own voice; it sounded shrill. The ache, the disgust of the afternoon swung back on her. Was she driving him to that? She stopped; and, more electric than a lightning flash, it came to her how most triumphantly she could end this situation. So, rising, she laid her hand on his breast and, looking up at him, said very gently and deliberately,
"Are you really angry with me, Armand?"