"Mademoiselle, you do me injustice."
"On the contrary, I give you credit for a great deal more common sense, as a rule, than you seem disposed to evince to-day. I am quite certain that you have never entertained any warmer feeling towards me than friendship."
This was an injudicious statement. Monsieur D'Arblet felt that his reputation as a galant homme and an adorer of the fair sex was impugned; he instantly flew into the most violent passion, and jumped about amongst the gipsy tables and the étagères, and the dainty little spindle-legged cabinets more vehemently than ever.
"I, not love you! Lucien D'Arblet profess a sentiment which he does not experience! Ah! par exemple, Mademoiselle, c'est trop fort! Next you will say that I am a menteur, a fripon, a lâche! You will tell me that I have no honour, and no sense of the generosity due to a woman; that I am a brute and an imbecile," and at every epithet he dashed his hands violently out in front of him, or thrust them wildly through his disordered locks. The whole room shook, every ornament on every table shivered with the strength of his agitation.
"Oh, I will say any single thing you like," cried Vera, "if only you will keep still——"
"Do not insult me by denying my affection!"
"I will deny nothing," said poor Vera, at her wits' ends. "If what I have said has pained you, I am sincerely sorry for it; but for Heaven's sake control yourself, and—and—do go away!"
Then Monsieur D'Arblet stood still and looked at her fixedly and mournfully; his hands had dropped feebly by his side, there was an air of profound melancholy in his aspect; he regarded her with a searching intensity. He was asking himself whether his agitation and his despair had produced the very slightest effect upon her; and he came to the conclusion they had not.
"Peste soit de cette femme!" he said to himself. "She is the first I ever came across who refused to believe in vows of eternal love. As a rule, women never fail to give them credit, if they are spoken often enough and shouted out loud enough the more one despairs and declares that one is about to expire, the more the dear creatures are impressed, and the more firmly they are convinced of the power of their own charms. But this woman does not believe in me one little bit. Love, despair, rage—it is all the same to her—I might as well talk to the winds! She only wants to get rid of me before her friend comes in, and before I break her accursed china. Ah it is these miserable little pots and jugs that she is thinking about! Very well, then, it is by them that I will do what I want. A great genius can bend to small things as well as soar to large ones—Voyons done, ma belle, which of us will be the victor!"
All this time he was gazing at her fixedly and dejectedly.