"You are going to have the courage to remain in a house from which I am driven out?"
He rose, relighted his cigarette, and said, icily:
"Oh! no scene, you know. I am not your husband. You have seen fit to commit a stupidity. I am not responsible for it. What do you expect? You must take the consequences. Life is life."
I became indignant.
"Then you are going to drop me? You are a wretch, a scoundrel, like the others, do you know it?"
William smiled. He was really a superior man.
"Oh! don't say useless things. I have made you no promises. Nor have you made me any. People meet; that is well. They part; that is well, too. Life is life."
And he added, sententiously:
"You see, Célestine, in life there must be conduct; there must be what I call administration. You have no conduct; you have no administration. You allow yourself to be carried away by your nerves. In our business nerves are a very bad thing. Remember this well: life is life."
I think I should have thrown myself upon him and torn his face, his emotionless and cowardly face of a flunky, with furious digs of my nails, if tears had not suddenly come to soften and relax my overstrained nerves. My wrath fell, and I begged: