We did not speak further. I could not talk until she apologized, and I rose to go out of the room. She gave me my crutch. Her not apologizing made me burn with resentment.
I had not been in the salon a minute, however, before she came in, her face crimson. She stood in front of me.
"I apologize for showing my temper this morning. Would it not do after to-day if I just lived out somewhere, and came in and worked as before? It is a perfect farce that I live here, and wear a wedding ring, even the servants must be laughing at me."
"I notice you do not wear a wedding ring. Your whole attitude is perfectly impossible, and I demand an explanation. What is the reason of it? We made a bargain, and you are not keeping it."
"If you will give me time to work, I will pay you back the fifty thousand francs, and the clothes and jewels I can leave behind me—I want to go."
She spoke with a break in her voice now.
"Why do you want to go suddenly, there is nothing different to-day to yesterday or any other day? I refuse to be the puppet of your caprices."
She stood clasping and unclasping her hands, never looking at me.
"Alathea," I said sternly, "look me straight in the face and tell me the truth. What is your reason."
"I can't" still her eyes were down.