"She is pretentious, rebellious against my authority; she is ungrateful for all I have done for her, she lies; I tell you she is impossible." "Let us talk this over," said Ferrati glad to have at last something definite to take hold of. "I will take you up point by point, and we will find out how much foundation there is for what you say. I believe it is all a misunderstanding." "It is not, I can't be deceived about my own wife, I know her better than she knows herself." "There is where you are wrong. Your wife is not perfect--no human being is, but you wilfully blind yourself to her good qualities and exaggerate her defects. Now take this, you call her pretentious," he flung his arms round Valentini's shoulders and forced him to pace slowly up and down the room--"I do not think her so. She is a beautiful woman, she is clever--I have read her publications and they are excellent,--she may have a little weakness for titled friends." "She fills my house with knaves and fools. She continues to receive people I have forbidden her to see, I won't have it! She--" "Sh! let me continue, when I have finished you shall say what you have to say. I repeat, you call her pretentious, my opinion and that of everyone who knows her is that she is modest and unassuming. As for her friends--" he wheeled suddenly looking Egidio in the eyes, "what right have you to object to them? Do you suppose your escapades, the way you spend your evenings, to be unknown? This woman, the original of this portrait, what right had you, knowing her for what she is, standing to her in the relation in which you did--what right had you, I say, to bring her here, into the house where your wife lives?" His voice was like a trumpet-call, and Egidio's eyes fell.