"Because I know what you are capable of!"
"You know—or you don't know; that's a question. I don't say that I won't put you in a way to solve it some day; that will depend on the way you behave toward Bibi!"
"What do you mean? Is that a threat?"
"Oh, no! I never threaten. Come, come! a fellow laughs and jests a bit, and you flare up right away! I should have supposed that wealth would make people more amiable."
"Wealth! why, I have no wealth; I have enough to live on and no more."
"Oh! I expected that; you haven't got any money, and you live in a magnificent apartment, you have splendid furniture and servants at your beck and call, you're dressed like a stage princess."
"What does all that prove? You know well enough that in Paris a person can make a great show without being rich; that sometimes all this display serves simply to cover up debts and straitened circumstances."
"Yes, yes; and another thing I know is that this is no furnished lodging house, and, that being so, you have your own furniture; that everything I see is yours; and look—with nothing but that clock and those candelabra on the mantelpiece, I could get enough to fit myself out new and go on a good long spree."
Thélénie contracted her black eyebrows and made an impatient gesture.
"Come," she cried, "tell me what you want of me? Why have you come here?"