“Your property, indeed!” said Brigitte, with a sneer.
“Yes, that which I received from my father and my mother, and which I brought as my ‘dot’ to Monsieur Thuillier.”
“And pray who invested it, this property, and made it give you twelve thousand francs a year?”
“I have never asked you for any account of it,” said Madame Thuillier, gently. “If it had been lost in the uses you made of it, you would never have heard a single word from me; but it has prospered, and it is just that I should have the benefit. It is not for myself that I reserve it.”
“Perhaps not; if this is the course you take, it is not at all sure that you and I will go out of the same door long.”
“Do you mean that Monsieur Thuillier will send me away? He must have reasons for doing that, and, thank God! I have been a wife above reproach.”
“Viper! hypocrite! heartless creature!” cried Brigitte, coming to an end of her arguments.
“Sister,” said Madame Thuillier, “you are in my apartment—”
“Am I, you imbecile?” cried the old maid, in a paroxysm of anger. “If I didn’t restrain myself—”
And she made a gesture both insulting and threatening.