“What!” she resumed, “that horrible, beautiful young lady, who gazed at my daughters with an air of pity⁠—she is that beggar brat! Oh! I should like to kick her stomach in for her!”

She sprang off of the bed, and remained standing for a moment, her hair in disorder, her nostrils dilating, her mouth half open, her fists clenched and drawn back. Then she fell back on the bed once more. The man paced to and fro and paid no attention to his female.

After a silence lasting several minutes, he approached the female Jondrette, and halted in front of her, with folded arms, as he had done a moment before:⁠—

“And shall I tell you another thing?”

“What is it?” she asked.

He answered in a low, curt voice:⁠—

“My fortune is made.”