"What! your house?"
"You thought that I had paid for it? It is a rented one and nothing in it is paid for. I owe for all, and to a hungry pack."
She began to laugh.
"Do you imagine then that old Kayser's niece could lead this life in which you see her? Without a sou, should I possess all that you see here?—No!—I have perpetrated the folly of ordering all these things for which I am now indebted and which must be paid for at once, and now I am about to be sued. There! you were determined to urge me to confess all that—Such are my worries and they are not yours, so I ask your pardon, my dear Vaudrey: so let us talk of something else. Well! how did the Fraynais interpellation turn out?—What has taken place in the Chamber?"
"Let us speak only of you, Marianne," said the minister, who looked at the young woman with a sort of frank compassion as a friendly physician looks at a sick person.
She nervously snapped her fingers and with her feet crossed, beat the little feverish march that she had previously done.
He drew still closer to her, trying to calm her and to obtain some explanation, some information from her; and Marianne, as if she had already yielded in at once confiding her secret unreflectingly, refused at present to accord him the full measure of her confidence. She repeated that nothing that could be a source of annoyance or sordid, ought to sadden her friends. Besides, one ought to draw the line at one's life-secret. She was entitled, in fact, to maintain silence. That Vaudrey should question her so, caused her horrible suffering.
"And you, Marianne," he said, "you torture me much more by not replying to me, to whom the least detail of your life is interesting. To me who see you preoccupied and distressed, when I wish, I swear to you, to banish all your sadness."
She turned toward him with an abrupt movement and with her gray, gold-speckled eyes flashing, she seemed to yield to a violent, sudden and almost involuntary decision and said to Sulpice:
"Then you wish to know even the wretchedness of my life? So be it! But I warn you that it is not very cheerful. For," said she, after a moment's silence,—Sulpice shuddered under her glance,—"it is better to be frank, and if you love me as you say you do, you should know me thoroughly; you can then decide what course to take. For myself, I am accustomed to deception."