Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/437

 get that peevishness out of your face! Do you know how a woman feels when she must sit all day beside a peevish man, trying and trying and trying to make a pleasanter expression show itself upon his face? No, of course not; no man can know such things! But I tell you when we have arrived here in Biskra I was exhausted with the struggle. Not with the days of driving—that could have been a delight—but with the effort to earn my way as your guest by making you cheerful. One more day of that, and I would be ready to cut my throat! I had enough of it, my friend, before we began this journey: I had enough of it in the house of Mademoiselle Daurel, and it is what I would give my life to escape from. And what right had you to be peevish with me?"

"See here," he began huskily. "I asked nothing of you"

"Ah! Didn't you?" She interrupted him with a sharp and bitter outcry. "All you asked was a complete supervision of my affairs, and on what ground?"

"What?" he said; for she confused him.

"You were jealous of me, just as that old woman was jealous. Do you deny it?"

"I do, emphatically. When was I"