"What did you do at Saint-Pipoy?" he asked, turning to look at her.
She told him in what capacity M. Vulfran had employed her.
"Monsieur Fabry then had been messing up things?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean—you don't know? Are you a silly?"
"Maybe I am."
"You're not, and you know it; and if you don't reply it's because you don't want to. Don't forget who is talking to you; do you know what I am here?"
"Yes, the foreman."
"That means the master. And as your master you do as I tell you. I am going to know all. Those who don't obey I fire! Remember that!"
This was indeed the man whom she had heard the factory girls talking about when she had slept in that terrible room at Mother Françoise's. The tyrant who wanted to be everything in the works, not only at Maraucourt, but at Saint-Pipoy, at Bacourt, at Flexelles, everywhere, and who would employ any means to uphold his authority, even disputing it with that of Monsieur Vulfran's.