“Here are your hundred and fifty francs, sir,” she uttered. “I am more grateful than I can express for your prompt kindness in lending them to me; but I did not need them.”
Maxence had risen from his seat, and was making every effort to control his own feelings.
“Still,” he began, “after what I heard—”
“Yes,” she interrupted, “Mme. Fortin and her husband were trying to frighten me. But they were losing their time. When, after the Commune, I settled with them the manner in which I would discharge my debt towards them, having a just estimate of their worth, I made them write out and sign our agreement. Being in the right, I could resist them, and was resisting them when you threw them those hundred and fifty francs. Having laid hands upon them, they had the pretension to keep them. That’s what I could not suffer. Not being able to recover them by main force, I went at once to the commissary of police. He was luckily at his office. He is an honest man, who already, once before, helped me out of a scrape. He listened to me kindly, and was moved by my explanations. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, he put on his overcoat, and came with me to see our landlord. After compelling them to return me your money, he signified to them to observe strictly our agreement, under penalty of incurring his utmost severity.”
Maxence was wonderstruck.
“How could you dare?” he said.
“Wasn’t I in the right?”
“Oh, a thousand times yes! Still—”
“What? Should my right be less respected because I am but a woman? And, because I have no one to protect me, am I outside the law, and condemned in advance to suffer the iniquitous fancies of every scoundrel? No, thank Heaven! Henceforth I shall feel easy. People like the Fortins, who live off I know not what shameful traffic, have too much to fear from the police to dare to molest me further.”
The resentment of the insult could be read in her great black eyes; and a bitter disgust contracted her lips.