And as his wife this time contented herself with shrugging her shoulders, he was seized with one of those sudden fits of madness which impelled him to the greatest violence, even when people were present, and made him openly display his rankling poisonous sore, that absurd jealousy which had upset his life.  As for that poor little puny, wailing child, he would have crushed her, for he held her to be guilty of everything, and indeed it was she who was now the obstacle to that excursion he had planned, that pleasure trip which he had promised himself, and which now seemed to him of such supreme importance.  And ’twas so much the better if friends were there to hear him.  So in the vilest language he began to upbraid his wife, not only reproaching her for the birth of that child, but even denying that the child was his.  “You will only be content when you have driven me from the house!” he finished in a fury.  “You won’t come?  Well then, I’ll go by myself!”

And thereupon he rushed off like a whirlwind, without a word to Santerre, who had remained silent, and without even remembering that Mathieu still stood there awaiting an answer.  The latter, in consternation at hearing all these things, had not dared to withdraw lest by doing so he should seem to be passing judgment on the scene.  Standing there motionless, he turned his head aside, looked at little Andree who was still crying, and at Gaston and Lucie, who, silent with fright, pressed one against the other behind the armchair in which their sister was wailing.

Valentine had sunk upon a chair, stifling with sobs, her limbs trembling.  “The wretch!  Ah, how he treats me!  To accuse me thus, when he knows how false it is!  Ah! never more; no, never more!  I would rather kill myself; yes, kill myself!”

Then Santerre, who had hitherto stood on one side, gently drew near to her and ventured to take her hand with a gesture of affectionate compassion, while saying in an undertone:  “Come, calm yourself.  You know very well that you are not alone, that you are not forsaken.  There are some things which cannot touch you.  Calm yourself, cease weeping, I beg you.  You distress me dreadfully.”

He made himself the more gentle since the husband had been the more brutal; and he leant over her yet the more closely, and again lowered his voice till it became but a murmur.  Only a few words could be heard:  “It is wrong of you to worry yourself like this.  Forget all that folly.  I told you before that he doesn’t know how to behave towards a woman.”

Twice was that last remark repeated with a sort of mocking pity; and she smiled vaguely amid her drying tears, in her turn murmuring:  “You are kind, you are.  Thank you.  And you are quite right. . . .  Ah! if I could only be a little happy!”