She looked at him in deepening horror, while she said in a hollow voice—
‘What of my husband, monsieur?’
‘Parbleu, I had no thought of him. What is he?—a common tradesman, I believe; a dull creature, incapable of comprehending the splendours of a nature like mine; there is no poetry in his soul. He adds up his accounts now; he will add them up when you are gone—that is all!’
Madeline’s face grew even whiter, but her eyes flashed fire.
‘Take care,’ she cried, ‘take care. Say what you like of me, do what you can to me, but don’t dare to put a slight on him.’
It was now the Frenchman’s turn to be astonished. For a moment the lackadaisical look of condescension passed completely from his eyes.
‘What do you mean?’ he asked sharply.
‘Only this, monsieur, that the gentleman whom you are pleased to denounce as commonplace is as far above you as the sun is above the earth. That after you had tried to destroy me it was he who nobly put out his hand to save me. That sooner than let you bring disgrace and sorrow to him I will make a sacrifice of myself, perhaps of you!’
‘Parbleu, but you are heroic,’ sneered the Frenchman.
‘What I am,’ continued Madeline, ‘I am; thanks to you, and you only. I have been dragged as low almost as the women who nightly walk the streets. Now you come to me and ask me to return to shame and degradation. Your wife I may be, as you say, but sooner than return to you and live with you—in honourable wedlock, as the world would call it—I would destroy myself. I expect no mercy from you. Well, you may do you worst—what that may be I neither know nor care.’