"Into this house you shall never pass again," he said. "You have disregarded my wishes, you have disobeyed my orders, and now you are deceiving me. You are trifling with my honor. You are bringing shame upon my name. Go and keep your assignations from another roof. Mine has sheltered your intrigues long enough!" The hand which had kept together her opera-cloak relinquished its grasp, and it fell back upon her shoulders. The whole beauty of her sinuous figure, in its garb of dazzling white, stood revealed. The moonlight gleamed in her fair hair, bound up with one glittering gem, shone softly upon her white swelling throat and bare arms, and flashed in her dark eyes, suddenly full of passion. Her right hand was nervously clasped around a little morsel of lace handkerchief which she had drawn from the folds of her corsage, and which seemed to make the air around heavy with a sweet perfume. "You are angry, and you do not know what you are saying," she said. "It is true that you forbade me to go to-night--but you forbid everything. I cannot live your life. It is too dull, too _triste_. It is cruel of you to expect it. Let me go in now. If you want to scold, you can do so to-morrow." She stepped forward, but he laid his hands upon her dainty shoulders and pushed her roughly back. "Never!" he cried savagely. "Go and live what life you choose. This is no home for you. Go, I say!" She looked at him, her lovely eyes turned pleadingly upwards, and her lips trembling. "You are mad!" she said. "Am I not your wife? You have no right to keep me here. And my boy, too. Let me pass." He did not move, nor did he show any sign of yielding. He stood there with his hand stretched out in a threatening gesture toward her, his face pale and mute as marble, but with the blind rage still burning in his dark eyes. "What is the boy, or what am I to you?" he cried hoarsely. "Begone, woman!" Still she did not seem to understand. "Where would you have me go?" she asked. "Is not this my home? What have I----" "Go to your lover!" he interrupted fiercely. "Tell him that your husband is no longer your tool. He will take you in." A burning color streamed into her delicate cheeks, and a sudden passion blazed in her eyes. She drew herself up to her full height and turned upon him with the dignity of an empress.