The outburst over, he sank into a chair, looking positively livid. What could Madeline say or do? She did not know. She stood staring stupidly at the Frenchman until he spoke again. He rose and came towards her, hissing his words through his teeth.
‘If M’sieur White has no money, if you have no money, why then did you run away from your school and marry me?’
‘I ran away from school because I was a foolish, ungrateful, headstrong girl, M’sieur, and I married you because you used cowardly, cruel means and forced me to do so!’
The Frenchman laughed, stretching his long thin mouth from ear to ear.
‘I force you to marry me, and make you a martyr, I suppose?—that is very good. But hear the truth from me, Madame—and unless you are careful, all the world shall know it too. I marry you simply out of pity. I am seduced by you to carry you off from school, and then, out of pity for you, I marry you and save you; yes, I sacrifice myself by taking a wife whose fame is gone—and then, when I look for a little help from you, you say “I give you none——-”’
He ended with an expletive which made the girl’s cheek burn with shame, and brought her trembling to her feet, with wrathful flame in her great blue eyes. For a moment he shrank before her.
‘Do not try grand airs with me. Madame—you had better think how you are to live!——’ and, with another oath, he hurriedly left the room.
All this while Madame Fontenay had kept her seat; but though her body had been inactive, her tongue silent, her eyes had done enough for all.
During the whole of the preceding interview they had been fixed with calm, cold scrutiny on Madeline’s face. She had noted every flush on her cheek, every curve of the lip, every look that was shot from the tearful eyes; finally, her cold grey orbs were fixed more steadily than ever upon the girl as she stood watching the door which had just been closed upon the enraged husband.
‘Mon Dieu!’ mentally exclaimed Madame de Fontenay, ‘the girl is superb, is magnificent—a face like that should be fortune enough for any man!’