"You slut! How dared you touch it at all?"
"You handed it to me," she said wearily.
"And you knew it was a mistake, you treacherous cat! My God! Have I nourished you for this, you little snake, that you turn your poisonous teeth on me?"
"Perhaps.... But not on my country."
"Your country! You miserable foundling, did you suppose yourself French?"
"France is the only country I have known. I refuse to betray her."
"France!" he shouted. "France! A hell of a country to snivel about! You can't tell me anything about France—the dirty kennel full of mongrels that it is! France? To hell with France!
"What has she done for me? What has she done to me? Chased me out of Paris; forced my only son into her filthy army; hunted us both without mercy—finally hunted my son into the Battalions of Biribi—me into this damned pigpen of Ausone! That's what France has done to me and mine!—Blackmailed me into playing the mouchard for her—forcing me to play spy for her by threatening to hunt me into La Nouvelle!
"By God! I break even, though! I sell her every chance I get; and what I sell to her she has to pay for, too—believe me, she pays for it a hundred times over!"
There came a silence, then Wildresse's voice again, rumbling, threatening: