they looked at each other. Then, almost every moment, in spite of
themselves, in spite of the irritation of their nerves caused by every
glance, they did not cease to exchange looks, rapid as pistol shots.

The Abbé, who felt that there was some cause for embarrassment which he
could not divine, tried to get up the conversation, and he started
various subjects, but his useless efforts gave rise to no ideas and did
not bring out a word. The Countess, with feminine tact and obeying her
instincts of a woman of the world, tried to answer him two or three
times, but in vain. She could not find words, in the perplexity of her
mind, and her own voice almost frightened her in the silence of the
large room, where nothing else was heard except the slight sound of
plates and knives and forks.

Suddenly, her husband said to her, bending forward: "Here, amidst your
children, will you swear to me that what you told me just now, is true?"

The hatred which was fermenting in her veins, suddenly roused her, and
replying to that question with the same firmness with which she had
replied to his looks, she raised both her hands, the right pointing
towards the boys and the left towards the girls, and said in a firm,
resolute voice, and without any hesitation: "On the head of my children,
I swear that I have told you the truth."

He got up, and throwing his table napkin onto the table with an
exasperated movement, he turned round and flung his chair against the
wall, and then went out without another word, while she, uttering a deep
sigh, as if after a first victory, went on in a calm voice: "You must
not pay any attention to what your father has just said, my darlings; he
was very much upset a short time ago, but he will be all right again,