He did not add that his experience had proved to him for a long time that security, harmony and the union of a home depended more on the wife than on the husband; she makes or unmakes the family as she does the fortune.
"Faults? What are mine?" asked Mme. Derize, smiling. "I should like to know what they are."
"I do not know yet. But I am sure that they exist."
Offended by this insistence, she defied him.
"Really? Tell me what they are."
He answered her in his own bantering way.
"Perhaps I shall tell you some day."
He was the first one who did not treat her as a victim, who did not pity her as a brave little martyr, and although she felt this opposition to be friendly, it hurt her. To conclude the conversation, she declared:
"All is over between us.... I do not ..."
She stopped short, puzzled by the confidence which came to her lips. What was she going to add? To find out he repeated in an insinuating tone: