“Eh, bien? I can give her one in France.”
“Are you quite sure?” I asked, looking him in the eyes.
“Monsieur,” said he, rising and giving his moustache a swashbuckler twist upward, “what are you daring to insinuate?”
I leaned back in my chair and fingered the waxed ends of mine.
“Nothing, Monsieur; I ask a simple question, which you surely can have no difficulty in answering.”
“Your questions are the height of indiscretion,” he cried angrily.
“In that case, before we carry this interview further, the Family Council and Madame would do well to have a private consultation.”
“Monsieur,” he cried, completely losing his temper. “I forbid you to use that tone to me. You are making a mock of me. You are insulting me. I bore with you long enough to see how much further your insolence would dare to go. I'm not to have a hand in the administration of my wife's money? I'm to forsake a plentiful means of livelihood? I'm to become a commercial traveller? I'm to expatriate myself? I'm to explain, too, the reasons why I left the army? I would not condescend. Least of all to you.”
“May I ask why, Monsieur?”
“Tonnerre de Dieu!” He stamped his foot. “Do you take me for a fool? Here I am—I came at my wife's request, ready to take her back as my wife, ready to condone everything—yes, Monsieur, as a man of the world—you think I have no eyes, no understanding—ready to take her off your hands—”