"You are sorry? How good of you! How paternal!"

"If your husband were here--"

"If my husband were here, you would probably be his best friend," she
rejoined, with acid sweetness; "and I should still have to take care of
myself."

Had he no sense of what was possible to leave unsaid to a woman? She was
very angry, though she was also a little sorry for him; for perhaps in
the long run he would be in the right. But he must pay for his present
stupidity.

"You wrong me," he answered, with a quick burst of feeling. "You are
most unfair. You punish me because I do my public duty; and because I
would do anything in the world for you, you punish me the more. Have you
forgotten two years ago? Is it so easy to your hand, a true and constant
admiration, a sincere homage, that you throw it aside like--"

"Monsieur De la Riviere," she said, with exasperating deliberation, her
eyes having a dangerous light, "your ten minutes is more than up. And it
has been quite ten minutes too long."

"If I were a filibuster"--he answered bitterly and suggestively.

She interrupted him, saying, with a purring softness: "If you had only
courage enough--"

He waved his hand angrily. "If I had, I should hope you would prove a
better friend to me than you are to this man."