"You realize it ?" "What is there in it that should puzzle a babe ?" Her callousness was like a gust of wind upon the living embers of his fears.

It blew them into a blaze of wrath, sudden and terrific as that of such a man at bay could be.

He advanced upon her with the rolling gait of the obese, his cheeks purple, his arms waving wildly, his dyed mustachios bristling.
"And what of me, madame ?" he spluttered.

"What of me?
Am I to be ruined, gaoled, and hanged, maybe, for refusing him men ?--for that is what is in your mind.

Am I to make myself an outlaw?
Am I, who have been Lord Seneschal of Dauphiny these fifteen years, to end my days in degradation in the cause of a woman's matrimonial projects for a simpering school-girl?
Seigneur du Ciel!" he roared, "I think you are gone mad--mad, mad! over this affair.