"What is it?" he asked, lifting his head still higher.
"I have finished the embroidery for your shirt front which your honour was pleased to command."
His honour with a haughty curl of the lip condescended to glance down upon the proffered embroidery. I am afraid Clementina was a poor physiognomist, she might have noticed from his face how utterly indifferent he was to her and her embroidery, which he regarded with puckered eyes and screwed-up mouth.
"No good. Those flowers are too big; it is the sort of thing the Wallachian peasants stitch on to their shirts." And with that he took up Clementina's scissors from the work-table and deliberately snipped into little bits the whole of the difficult piece of work which the worthy woman had been slaving away at for a week and more, finally pitching it away contemptuously while she sat there and stared at him dumfoundered.
"John, John!" said the old man in mild remonstrance.
"To show me such rubbish when I am mad! When I am wroth! When I am beside myself with fury!"
"Why are you angry, and with whom?"
John went on as if he did not mean to tell the cause of his anger. He flung himself into an armchair, crossed his legs, plunged his hands into the depths of his pockets and then, starting up, began to pace the room again.
"I am furious."
"Then what's the matter?" enquired the old man anxiously.