“Oh!” In the word was anger, scorn, incredulity. She had difficulty in commanding herself from uttering more; but the one exclamation was eloquent. Her father looked up at her.
“Hum! I see you don’t. Well, prove it; prove that he’s innocent. That can’t be such a hard matter. Do you think I want it the other way? Why, I can’t even go for my coffee but that little imbecile Leroux flings a taunt in my face. I tell you that I—I!—after all these years—walk about the town in dread of what I shall hear.”
He began almost inaudibly, ended loudly. There was no softening in her glance.
“Oh!” she reiterated. “The shame of hearing you say this! You, who know him!”
“Ask his mother,” he muttered. “She can’t deny it. She thinks the same. Do you know what he did! Gave her the receipt, as she supposed, to keep, and it was a blank sheet of paper.”
She burst in: “What of that? She fretted him into it. She can fret, I tell you! He had no receipt; he has said so throughout Oh!”—she laughed—“and this is what has persuaded you!”
“Well, I hope you are right.” But she could see he was not shaken.
“Léon sent me to know what you thought about it all.”
“Sit down, then, and let’s hear,” he said, gloomily. “There’s a chair.”
She drew it back, sat down, and said, coldly: “What do you wish to hear!”