"What do I care for your stage?" cried Jansoulet fiercely, despite all his respect for the daughter of the Afchins. "What! you're not dressed, yet? Weren't you told that we were going out?" She had been told, but she had begun to read this idiotic play. "We will go out to-morrow," she said in her sleepy tone. "To-morrow! Impossible! We are expected to-day without fail. A very important visit." "Where are we to go, pray?" He hesitated a second, then answered: "To Hemerlingue's." She looked up at him with her great eyes, convinced that he was laughing at her. Thereupon he told her of his meeting with the baron at Mora's funeral and the agreement they had made. "Go there if you choose," she said coldly; "but you know me very little if you think that I, an Afchin, will ever set foot inside that slave's door." Cabassu, seeing the turn that the discussion was taking, had prudently disappeared in an adjoining room, the five books of _Revolte_ in a pile under his arm. "Stay," said the Nabob to his wife, "it is clear that you don't understand the terrible plight I am in. Listen." Heedless of the maids and negresses, with the Oriental's sovereign indifference for the servant class, he began to draw the picture of his great embarrassment, his property in Tunis seized, his credit in Paris lost, his whole life hanging in suspense on the decision of the Chamber, Hemerlingue's influence with the man who was to make the report, and the absolute necessity of sacrificing all self-love to such momentous interests. He talked with great warmth, eager to persuade her, to take her with him. But she replied, simply: "I will not go," as if it were a matter of an expedition of no possible consequence, so long that it was likely to tire her. "Come, come, it isn't possible that you would say such a thing," he continued, quivering with excitement. "Remember that my fortune is at stake, the future of your children, the very name you bear. Everything is staked on this one concession, which you cannot refuse to make." He might have talked thus for hours, he would still have been met by the same determined, invincible obstinacy. A Mademoiselle Afchin could not call upon a slave. "I tell you, madame," he exclaimed, savagely, "that slave is worth more than you. By her shrewdness she has doubled her husband's wealth, while you on the contrary--" For the first time in the twelve years of their married life Jansoulet dared to oppose his wife's will. Was he ashamed of that crime of _lese-majeste_ or did he realize that such a declaration might dig an impassable abyss between them? At all events he changed his tone at once and knelt beside the low bed, with the affectionate, smiling tone one employs to make children listen to reason.