“It is nothing. Merely an impertinent letter which arrived this morning, and annoyed me a good deal; but I have talked it over with my mother, and have written the necessary answer. So now, little fidget, you know everything.”
She hesitated before she answered.
“Do you mean that the annoyance is at an end?”
“How can I tell? I hope so—certainly I hope so,” he said, still hurriedly.
She dropped her hands and turned away, then came back with a heightened colour in her cheeks.
“Léon, I do not think I can bear it any longer.”
“Bear it? Bear what?” There was genuine amazement in his tone.
“Being shut out of so much of your life. Oh, you are good to me, I am not denying that; there is nothing I asked for which I believe you would not try to give me, except this—the one thing for which I hunger. Do you not understand that I am not a child? I am your wife, the mother of your son. You tell me that you love me, yet only treat me as a plaything; when sorrow or anxiety comes you turn to your mother, and I—I, who should be the nearest and the dearest, am not so much as allowed to know what is troubling you. Dear, this should not be. Do you know that when you do this, out of your love—oh yes, out of your love, and wish to spare me—you are putting me to cruel dishonour? Are we not man and wife—one? Your sorrow is my sorrow, your lot is my lot; if there is anything you must suffer, I have the right to claim to suffer with you. Léon, up to this time I have been but half your wife, and what I say is true. I cannot bear it any longer. I claim my right.”
She stood before him, her earnest eyes fixed upon his face, and her voice trembling a little as she spoke. He tried to look at her, but his eyes fell before the frank honesty which he found in hers, and he turned pale. When he spoke, his voice even sounded slightly sullen.
“Nathalie—I give you my word—you don’t know what you are talking about.”