He assumed an air of dignity, saying: “I beg of you to pay attention to the words you are making use of.”

His indignation revolted her. “What? You want me to put on gloves to talk to you now. You have behaved towards me like a vagabond ever since I have known you, and you want to make out that I am not to tell you so. You deceive everyone; you take advantage of everyone; you filch money and enjoyment wherever you can, and you want me to treat you as an honest man!”

He rose, and with quivering lip, said: “Be quiet, or I will turn you out of here.”

She stammered: “Turn me out of here; turn me out of here! You will turn me out of here⁠—you⁠—you?” She could not speak for a moment for choking with anger, and then suddenly, as though the door of her wrath had been burst open, she broke out with: “Turn me out of here? You forget, then, that it is I who have paid for these rooms from the beginning. Ah, yes, you have certainly taken them on from time to time. But who first took them? I did. Who kept them on? I did. And you want to turn me out of here. Hold your tongue, you good-for-nothing fellow. Do you think I don’t know you robbed Madeleine of half Vaudrec’s money? Do you think I don’t know how you slept with Susan to oblige her to marry you?”

He seized her by the shoulders, and, shaking her with both hands, exclaimed: “Don’t speak of her, at any rate. I won’t have it.”

She screamed out: “You slept with her; I know you did.”

He would have accepted no matter what, but this falsehood exasperated him. The truths she had told him to his face had caused thrills of anger to run through him, but this lie respecting the young girl who was going to be his wife, awakened in the palm of his hand a furious longing to strike her.