Madeleine cried with a stamp of her foot:
“Don’t light up! don’t light up!”
Her father obediently lit his pipe, knocked out the half-burnt spill against the fireplace and put it back.
Victor, disappointed at the way his anecdote was received, said gallantly:
“One sees you are a good housekeeper, and not one to burn good money!”
But Madeleine was just succeeding, by sheer will-power in swallowing—swallowing down. It—the maniacal desire that had come rushing up from her heart into her head—the strong frenzy of a strong nature—bidding her catch up the great steel harl from the hearth and smash in the heads—not so much of her father and Victor, but of these two men—prototypes of all the other careless, mischievous, hopeless men, that had let Georges be hurt in their insane war. She swallowed, and the fury of that instant was gone, battened down, under control. She replied to Victor in a steady off-hand voice:
“Oh no, we have plenty of candles from the English. After all, you might as well light up, Father!”
As he did so, the old man asked:
“What had he the matter with him, the poor young Baron?”
“He had become consumptive, owing to the life.”