“You told him! You don’t think he is doing it to spite me! That postman and the parrot are a pair!”
“The parrot! He never opened his month. He was as quiet as a mouse all morning. You blame him for everything.—” Marguerite’s voice was becoming lachrymose. “You hate him because I love him so. Poor dear!” She nestled close to the parrot’s cage. “It is about time that both you and I go—Albert loves neither of us any longer——”
Marguerite’s chin began to quiver, the dimples in her cheeks appeared and disappeared, and presently the deluge. She dropped into a chair and the tears soon flowed through her fingers, with which she covered her eyes.
He rushed up to her with a gesture of helplessness.
“What are you crying about? It’s I who ought to cry—a fine morning’s work gone because that stupid postman rings the doorbell as if he were a Prussian officer. Am I blaming you?”
“If—you—loved—me—you—wouldn’t—talk—that—way—” Her words came between sobs.
He strode across the room and waved his arms in despair. He gnashed his teeth but said nothing.
“You see, you wouldn’t even deny it—you know you don’t love me any longer. I know, I know, yesterday at the Café des Ambassadeurs with those funny Germans of yours you sat at the table and talked of nothing but the Princess Pompani. You think because I don’t understand German you can talk of your other loves with impunity—but I understand what Prinzessin means—every minute it was Prinzessin this and Prinzessin that—”
She lapsed into convulsive sobbing.
Suddenly he burst out laughing.