"You are opening this subject again."
"I am: I have to: your mother confirms everything that I have charged you with."
"My mother hates me," said the woman, "she would confirm anything that was said of me, if it was bad enough."
"She is your mother."
"Oh no, she is not! When I ceased to be a child she ceased to be a mother. We are only two women who are so well acquainted that we can be enemies without any shame of each other."
"Are you not talking nonsense?"
"I have committed a crime against her. She will never forgive me for being younger than she is, and for being pretty in her own fashion. She left my father because he said I was good-looking."
"All that...!" said the man with a movement of his shoulder.
"As to what she would do against me, you should know it well enough considering the things she told you before we were married."
"You admitted that they were not all lies."