"Where have you been?" he asked harshly. "Can you not see that it is morning? All night long I have sat here watching for you. Where have you been?"
"You know very well where I have been," she answered carelessly. "To the ball at the Leon d'Or. I told you that I was going."
"Told me! You told me! Did I not forbid it? Did I not tell you that I would not have you go?"
"Nevertheless, I have been," she answered lightly. "It was an engagement, and I never break engagements."
"An engagement? You, with no chaperon, to go to a common ball at a public room! An engagement. Yes, with your lover, I presume."
She looked at him steadily, and yawned in his face.
"You are in a bad temper, I fear," she said. "At least, you are very rude. Let me pass, will you? I am tired of standing here."
He was beside himself with passion, and for a second or two he did not speak. But when at last the words came, they were clear and distinct enough.
"Into this house you shall never pass again," he said. "You have disregarded my wishes, you have disobeyed my orders, and now you are deceiving me. You are trifling with my honor. You are bringing shame upon my name. Go and keep your assignations from another roof. Mine has sheltered your intrigues long enough!"
The hand which had kept together her opera-cloak relinquished its grasp, and it fell back upon her shoulders. The whole beauty of her sinuous figure, in its garb of dazzling white, stood revealed. The moonlight gleamed in her fair hair, bound up with one glittering gem, shone softly upon her white swelling throat and bare arms, and flashed in her dark eyes, suddenly full of passion. Her right hand was nervously clasped around a little morsel of lace handkerchief which she had drawn from the folds of her corsage, and which seemed to make the air around heavy with a sweet perfume.