"Noémi has told me everything!"
The colour had mounted to her cheeks. Henri was as pale as if some one had just spat in his face.
"You cannot, anyhow, marry her daughter!" exclaimed Renée.
"My dear girl," answered Henri coldly, in a voice that trembled, "it seems to me that you are interfering in things that don't concern you. And you will allow me to say that for a young girl——"
"Ah, you mean this is dirt that I ought to know nothing of; that is quite true, and I should never have known of it but for you."
"Renée!" Henri approached his sister. He was in one of those white rages which are terrible to witness, and Renée was alarmed and stepped back. He took her by the arm and pointed to the door. "Go!" he said, and a moment later he saw her in the corridor, putting her hand against the wall for support.
XXV
"Go up, Henri," said M. Mauperin to his son, and then as Henri wanted his father to pass first M. Mauperin repeated, "No, go on up."
Half an hour later father and son were coming downstairs again from the office of the Keeper of the Seals.