"I _am_ so." "This is tiresome, _ma femme_." "Yes, insupportably; _this_, and every thing else that passes here." "It appears to me, you are somewhat hard to please." "Quite the reverse. I ask but to mix in human society." "You have society enough, madame." "I have absolutely none, sir." "I can't say what society you enjoyed in the Parc de Charrebourg, madame," he began, in an obvious vein of sarcasm. And as he did so, he thought he observed her eyes averted, and her color brighten for a moment. He did not suffer this observation to interrupt him, but he laid it up in the charnel of his evil remembrances, and continued: "I don't know, I say, what society you there enjoyed. It may have been very considerable, or it may have been very limited: it was possibly very dull, or possibly very delightful, madame. But if you _had_ any society there _whatever_, it was private, secret; it was neither seen nor suspected, madame, and, therefore, you must excuse me if I can't see what sacrifice, in point of society, you have made in exchanging your _cottage_ in the Parc de Charrebourg for a residence in the Chateau des Anges." "Sir, I _have_ made sacrifices--I have lost my liberty, and gained you." "I see, my pretty wife, it will be necessary that you and I should understand one another," he said, tranquilly, but with a gloom upon his countenance that momentarily grew darker and darker. "That is precisely what I desire," replied his undaunted helpmate. "Leave us, Julie," said the fermier-general, with a forced calmness. Julie threw an imploring glance at Lucille as she left the room, for she held her uncle in secret dread. As she glided through the door her last look revealed them seated at the little table; he--ugly: black, and venomous; she--beautiful, and glittering in gay colors. It was like a summer fly basking unconsciously within the pounce of a brown and bloated spider. "Depend upon it, madame, this will never do," he began. "Never, sir," she repeated emphatically. "Be silent, and listen as becomes you," he almost shouted, with a sudden and incontrollable explosion of rage, while the blood mounted to his discolored visage. "Don't fancy, madame, that I am doting, or that you can manage me with your saucy coquetry or sulky insolence. I have a will of my own, madame, under which, by Heaven, I'll force yours to bend, were it fifty times as stubborn as ever woman's was yet. You shall obey--you shall submit. If you will not practise your duty cheerfully, you shall learn it in privation and tears; but one way or another, I'll bring you to act, and to speak, and to _think_ as I please, or I'm not your husband." "Well, sir, try it: and in the mean time, I expect----" "What do you expect?" he thundered. "I expect to receive a counterpart of this," she said, with deliberate emphasis, holding the magic vial steadily before his eyes.