So this was what she had been driving at. He understood. She should have known from the change in his face that she had struck home, but at her tender age vision is not clear enough to read the inner feelings through the features. She was accordingly hardly moderate in heaping up her boarding-school disdain upon him. “It’s always shabby, my dear sir, to desert a fiancée. And when she is in trouble it’s perfectly abominable.” What right had she to scold him so violently? Raymond Bercy was irritated by it all, and yet, at the bottom of his heart, was conscious of a bitter-sweet pleasure in hearing Margaret spoken of. His anger and bitterness crept into his retort. “I didn’t appoint you to judge me, mademoiselle,” he said, “but if you talk to me in the name of another, my reply is that----” “I’m not speaking in any one’s name----” “That you are misinformed. It wasn’t I who broke our engagement. I would gladly have kept it.” “You would have kept it? Oh, when the sun is shining, you men, all of you, are always on hand; and when it rains, there isn’t a soul of you about.” “But you are too unjust, after all. I shall lose my patience with you.” She was as far as ever from keeping still, going on to worry him, like a wasp that hovers round you and tries to sting. “It’s a great mistake for a man to get cross,” she said. “I don’t have to report to you, Miss Sassenay. Let me tell you, however, that Miss Roquevillard broke our engagement of her own free will.” “Out of generosity.” “Without any consideration for my feelings or the pain it gave me.” “In such circumstances you shouldn’t have let her break it,” declared Jeanne. Her cheeks had grown quite red, and her self-possession was gone. She was contradicting herself furiously, and he, too, was scarcely more calm than she was. “And if her brother is convicted?” he demanded. “’Tis a fine case, isn’t it?” “Oh, really, do you think so, Miss Sassenay?” “Yes, really. As for me, if I were in love it would be all the same to me if my fiancé were sent to the galleys. I’d follow him, do you hear, sir. And if I had to commit some crime to be sent after him, I’d commit it. Biff, boom! Just like that!” “You’re a child,” he commented; then brusquely he changed his tone, and whispered in a heavy voice: “Do you think I have no regrets for her?” She changed as quickly as he had, triumphantly, and was almost on the point of falling on his neck. Mrs. Sassenay, surprising this by-play from a distance, was distressed by what she saw, and blamed herself for her neglect. “Oh, I knew quite well, sir,” said Jeanne, “that you couldn’t want to marry me. Good, then, be off with you. Run and tell Margaret. Beg her for my sake to forgive you. Take your place again quickly in the family before the trial comes on. Afterwards it will be too late. It will do more good than prescribing all sorts of nasty medicines for your sick people.” “Thanks.” “Be off then, at once.” “But it’s half-past eleven,” argued Raymond.