“Madame Dammauville is up,” he said.

“No.”

“I thought she must be, by your vivacity and lightness.”  “It is because I am happy; Madame Dammauville wishes to consult you.”

He took her hands roughly and shook them.

“You have done that!” he exclaimed.

She looked at him frightened.

“You!  You!” he repeated with increasing fury.

“At least listen to me,” she murmured.  “You will see that I have not compromised you in anything.”

Compromised!  It was professional dignity of which he thought, truly!

“I do not want to listen to you; I shall not go.”

“Do not say that.”

“It only needed that you should dispose of me in your own way.”

“Victor!”

Anger carried him away.

“I belong to you, then!  I am your thing!  You do with me what you wish!  You decide, and I have only to obey!  There is too much of this!  You can go; everything is at an end between us.”

She listened, crushed; but this last word, which struck her in her love, gave her strength.  In her turn she took his hands, and although he wished to withdraw them, she held them closely in her own.

“You may throw in my face all the angry words you please; you may reproach me as much as you think I deserve it, and I will not complain.  Without doubt, I have done you wrong, and I feel the weight of it on seeing how profoundly you are wounded; but to send me away, to tell me that all is over between us, no, Victor, you will not do that.  You will not say it, for you know that never was a man loved as I love you, adored, respected.  And voluntarily, deliberately, even to save my brother, that I should have compromised you!”

He pushed her from him.

“Go!” he said harshly.

She threw herself on her knees, and taking his hands that he had withdrawn, she kissed them passionately.

“But listen to me,” she cried.  “Before condemning me, hear my defence.  Even if I were a hundred times more guilty than I really am, you could not drive me from you with this unmerciful hardness.”

“Go!”

“You lose your head; anger carries you away.  What is the matter?  It is impossible that I, by my stupidity, through my fault, could put you in such a state of mad exasperation.  What is the matter, my beloved?”

These few words did more than Phillis’s despair of her expressions of love.  She was right, he lost his head.  And however guilty she might be towards him, it was evident that she could not admit that the fault she committed threw him into this access of furious folly.  It was not natural; and in his words and actions all must be natural, all must be capable of explanation.

“Very well, speak!” he said.  “I am listening to you.  Moreover, it is better to know.  Speak!”

CHAPTER XXXI

THE APPOINTMENT