"Rudolph," she said, loftily, "it is simply ridiculous. If you don't think it indelicate, you might at least try to think it ridiculous. It tickles your sense of humour, but imagine what people would say about it in Holland!... The other evening, at the party, you took me by surprise and somehow—I really don't know how it happened—I yielded to your strange wish to dance with me and to lead the cotillon. I frankly confess, I was confused. I now see everything clearly and plainly and I tell you this: I refuse to meet you again. I refuse to speak to you again. I refuse to turn the solemn earnest of our divorce into a farce."
"If you look back," he said, "you will recollect that you never got anything out of me with that lofty tone and those dignified airs, but that, on the contrary, you just stimulate me to do what you don't want...."
"If that is so, I shall simply tell Mrs. Uxeley in what relation I stand to you and ask her to forbid you her house."
He laughed. She lost her temper:
"Do you intend to behave like a gentleman or like a cad?"
He turned red and clenched his fists:
"Curse you!" he hissed, in his moustache.
"Perhaps you would like to hit me and knock me about?" she continued, scornfully.
He mastered himself.
"We are in a room full of people," she sneered, defiantly. "What if we were alone? You've already clenched your fists! You would thrash me as you did before. You brute! You brute!"