She looked about her with an expression of powerless rage, like a very graceful wild beast enclosed in a cage. Her letters, her last letters must be here, in one of those pieces of furniture whose drawers she might open with her nails. She threw her gloves on the floor and mechanically tore into shreds—as she always did when in a rage—between her nervous fingers, her fine cambric handkerchief reduced to rags.
"Be very careful what you are doing, Guy," she said at last, casting a malicious look at him, "I have purchased these letters from you, for I hate you, I repeat it, and these letters you owe to me as you would owe money promised to a wench. If you do not give them to me, I will have them, notwithstanding."
"Really?"
"I promise you I will."
"And suppose I have burned them?"
"You lie, you have them here, you have kept them. You have behaved toward me like a thief."
"Nonsense, Marianne," said Lissac coldly, "on my faith, I see I have done well to preserve some weapon against you. You are certainly very dangerous!"
"More than you imagine," she replied.
He moved slightly backward, seeing that she wished to pass him to reach the door.
"You will not give me back my letters?" she asked in a harsh and menacing tone as she stood on the threshold of the room.