"Take care!—or I shall tell you—where I've been! And you might regret it."
"No. For God's sake!—no more confessions!"
She laughed, and lay back. But a moment later, she cried out: "Why don't you go away yourself? You know I loathe the sight of you; and yet you stick on here like like a leech. Go away, oh, why can't you go away!"
"To-day, I might have taken you at your word."
At the mention of Madeleine's name, she pricked up her ears. "Oho!" she said, when lie had finished his story. "So Madeleine pays you visits, does she?—the sainted Madeleine! You have her there, and me here.—A pretty state of things!"
"Hold your tongue! I'm not in the mood to-night to stand your gibes."
"But I'm in the mood to make them. And how is one to help it when one hears that that ineffable creature is no better than she ought to be?"
"Hold your tongue!" he cried again. "How dare you speak like that of the girl who has been such a good friend to me!"
"Friend!" she echoed. "What fools men are! She's in love with you, that's all, and always has been. But you were never man enough to know what it was she wanted—your friend!"
"Ah, you——!" The nervous strain of the afternoon reached its climax. "You! Yes!—that's you all over! In your eyes nothing is good or pure. And you make everything you touch dirty. You're not fit to take a decent woman's name on your lips!"