Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 3.djvu/239

 heeding this somewhat passionate ejaculation—'don't you remember how, the other day, you accused me of being not only a coward but a traitor; of playing false; of wanting, as you said, to back out?'

'Most distinctly. How can I help its coming over me, at times, that you have incalculable ulterior views and are only using me—only using us all? But I don't care!'

'No, no; I'm genuine,' said Paul Muniment, simply, yet in a tone which might have implied that the discussion was idle. And he immediately went on, with a transition too abrupt for perfect civility: 'The best reason in the world for your not having a lawsuit with your husband is this: that when you haven't a penny left you will be obliged to go back and live with him.'

'How do you mean, when I haven't a penny left? Haven't I my own property?' the Princess demanded.

'The Prince tells me that you have drawn upon your own property at such a rate that the income to be derived from it amounts, to his positive knowledge, to no more than a thousand francs—forty pounds—a year. Surely, with your habits and tastes, you can't live on forty pounds. I should add that your husband implies that your property, originally, was but a small affair.'

'You have the most extraordinary tone,' observed the Princess, gravely. 'What you appear to wish to express is simply this: that from the moment I have no more money to give you I am of no more value than the skin of an orange.'

Muniment looked down at his shoe awhile. His companion's words had brought a flush into his cheek; he appeared to admit to himself and to her that, at the point