was unfortunate for a man like me to be married to a woman like you,
unpunctual, careless, disorderly, a bad mother and a bad wife ..."

The young woman had gone into the anteroom followed by Limousin, who did
not say a word at this unexpected position of things. She shut the door
quickly, threw her cloak onto a chair, and going straight up to her
husband, she stammered out: "You say? ... you say? ... that I am ...?"

He was very pale and calm and replied: "I say nothing, my dear. I am
simply repeating what Julie said to me, as you wanted to know what it
was, and I wish you to remark that I turned her off just on account of
what she said."

She trembled with a violent longing to tear out his beard and scratch
his face. In his voice and manner she felt that he was asserting his
position as master, although she had nothing to say by way of reply, and
she tried to assume the offensive, by saying something unpleasant: "I
suppose you have had dinner?" she asked.

"No, I waited for you." She shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "It is
very stupid of you to wait after half past seven," she said. "You might
have guessed that I was detained, that I had a good many things to do,
visits and shopping."

And then suddenly, she felt that she wanted to explain how she had spent
her time, and she told him in abrupt, haughty words, that having to buy
some furniture in a shop a long distance off, very far off, in the _Rue
de Rennes_, she had met Limousin at past seven o'clock on the _Boulevard
Saint-Germain_, and that then she had gone with him to have something to
eat in a restaurant, as she did not like to go to one by herself,